TWENTY-FIVE 



STEPPING STONES 



TOWARD 



6HRISTS KINGDOM. 



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' FRADENBURGH, 

LIBERTY, N. Y. 





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THE LIBRARY OF 

CG^iGRESS, 
Two Cof(t3 Received 

NOV, 12 1901 

CoPVaiBHT ENTRY 

CLM83 a_^ T^b. No. 
COPY 3. 



-F6 2 



Copyrighted iSgg, by O. P. Fradenburgh. 
All rights reserved. 



CONTENTS. 



s ss s 

FIRST STEP. 
Man 7 

SECOND STEP. 
The Holy Spirit 14 

THIRD STEP. 
Holy Men of Old 22 

FOURTH STEP. 
Imputed Righteousness Answered 33 

FIFTH STEP. 
TMnk 43 

SIXTH STEP. 
Final Perseverance of the Saints and Bible Twisting 43 

SEVENTH STEP. 
The Kingdom of God 61 

EIGHTH STEP. 
Ante-Christ o9 

NINTH STEP. 
The Two Witnesses 79 

TENTH STEP. 
Baptism and Hobby-Horses 91 

ELEVENTH STEP. 
Communion and Eating Christ 99 

TWELFTH STEP. 
The Sabbath vs. The Lord's Day 104 



THIRTEENTH STEP. 
Eating and Drinking Ill 

FOURTEEMTH STEP. 
Ye Are Gods 118 

FIFTEENTH STEP. 

Is the End of the Age and the Coming of the Lord Near?. . . 125 

SIXTEENTH STEP. 
Fools 130 

SEVENTEENTH STEP. 
The Church of Rome 138 

EIGHTEENTH STEP. 
War 144 

NINETEENTH STEP. 
Christ in Politics 151 

TWENTIETH STEP. 
Money and Religion 154 

TWENTY-FIRST STEP. 
Christian Perfection 159 

TWENTY-SECOND STEP. 
Good Will to Men 167 

TWENTY-THIRD STEP. 
Martin Luther 174 

TWENTY-FOURTH STEP. 
Adiam's Fall ; 184 

TWENTY-FIFTH STEP. 
Virginity 193 

TWENTY-SIXTH STEP. 

The Fish Story 196 

TWENTY-SEVENTH STEP. 

Free Methodist Perfection 200 



PREFACE. 



You will find that the Twentv-five Stepping 
Stones are firmly founded on the Rock, so you can 
stand upon them with safety, for the great truths 
they contain I received by direct revelation, through 
the Spirit, and on January 16th, 1891, God sent his 
angel to anoint me to restore to the church the faith 
and teachings of the Apostolic Church, or in other 
words, to be one of the witnesses of Revelations XI. 
This you will not believe, for no prophet is honored 
in his own country. But if you will send to Scrib- 
ner's Sons |20 you can get ten volumes of tno writ- 
ings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and they will prove 
to ,you that I teaeh nothing but what was taught in 
the Apostolic Church. (My set cost nearly twice as 
much). Id short I will recant any doctrine that I 
hold that they did not teach, for they taught the 
whole council of God. If I am not the Elijah that 
was for to come and restore all things, I have usurp- 
ed his place and am doing his work, and it is foi 
you to say whose work I am doing. (Read 9th Step.) 
The full account of my experience and unjust im- 
prisonment is told in a book of 30 Large pages, en- 
titled. '^ Twice Kidnapped;" pnice 15 cents. The 
Stepping Stones lead to the door of the Kingdom. 
When you have stepped on them all you will want 
the keys to get in, so send 50 cents for '' Saint 
Peter's Keys, or The Mystery of Christ's Kingdom 
Revealed," and you will get a book of about 100 
large pages, equal to 125 of these, that will tell the 
whole story. This book has proved a blessing to 
many and many have rejoiced to get it. The most 
eminent and best learned Christian physician here 
says: '' Next to the Bible it it the most important 



book published." I did not get the truth from the 
" Fathers/' for I received it by direct revelation be- 
fore I saw or heard of them, but I have quoted from 
them largely, thinking you would accept truth from 
them rather than from me, and two fatnesses are 
better than one. Praying that a blessing will fol- 
low your reading this book, I remain yours for the 
Kingdom, 

O. P. FRADENBURGH, 

Libertv, N. Y. 
September 20th, 1900- 



> 



FIRST STEP 



Man. 



In the first chapter in the Bible you will find my 
text; also in the last. In short you can hardly open 
the Bible without finding it, as it occurs many thous- 
and times. Yetj perhaps no word in our language is 
so difficult to define. A college i^rofessor in trying 
to define it to his class called man an unfeathered 
biped. One of his students plucked or unfeathered 
a hen, presented it, exclaiming: '' Behold your man!'' 

One morning as Israel was emeT'ging from their 
tents they saw the ground cohered with a white sub- 
stance. They looked at it anf*. said man-na, which 
means: What is itf They touched it and said man- 
na, and tasted it and repeated ma-i-na, and it was 
man-na. When we see a being created in the image 
of God go staggering through the street or lying in 
the gutter, we say manna, for no word will define 
him. To call him a brute would slander the brute. 
Was that the crowning work of God's glorious cre- 
ation over which the morning stars sang together 
and the sons of God shouted for joy? Yet he has a 
better right to a name than he whose greed for gain 
is responsible for his being in that condition. Of 
him also we say, manna. 

Of those who come to Christ making strong claims 
of fniendship and service, He replies, '' I never knew 
you." '^ What is man that thou art mindful of him? 
and the son of man that thou visitest him? " says the 
Psalmist. A man promotes one w^ho has long served 
him in a less responsible position and gives him the 
keys of his wealth, but he betrays his trust and ab- 
sconds with his beuefactor'si wealthy who replies 



8 

with bitterness, ^' I never knew you, but I vadnlv 
thought I did.'' He finds the truth of this. The 
heart is deceitful above all 'things and desperately 
wicked. Who can know it? 

In South Africa we find a powerful and so called 
Christian nation nas pounced on two little Christian 
republics like a wolf on a. couple of kids, to rob them 
of their Jives, liberties and homes, and all to satisfy 
their greed for gold. Is England willing to barter 
her soul for those gold and diamond mines. Is not 
Christ answ^ering them to-day, '' I never knew you." 
God well says, " Behold, the nations are as a drop in 
bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the 
balance. Behold, He taketh up the isles as a very 
little thing, and Lebanon is not suffered to burn, or 
the beasts thereof for a burnt offering. All the 
nations are as northing before Him; they are count- 
ed to Him less than nothing, and vanity." 

God created the horse, cow, sheep, dog, poultry, 
and other useful animals to serve man. and surely 
no man could devise more faithful servants. They 
take pride in obeying their master, which appears 
to be the instinct of their own nature. But for w^hat 
purpose was man created? Was it to serve God? 
If so. He made a great blunder and the infallible 
failed, for the mind of the flesh is enmity against 
God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither, 
indeed, can it be; and they that are in the flesh cam 
not please God. So you see he is neither a friend 
nor a servant. Yet the Word says: ^' Thou hast 
made him but little lower than God and crow^neth 
him with glory and honor." Yet where is the glory 
and honor? 

The time ha-s come to solve the mystery of man 
that has perplexed the ages. Although all modern 
efforts to live in perfect subjection to God's law have 
failed, although many have professed to, but they 
have made a sorry lead of it, and the greatest theolo- 



9 

gians deny that is is possible to live without sinniiig 
against God. Spurgeon was asked his opinion of 
the sinless people. He replied: '' I do not think 
much of them. I employed some to work in my 
garden; they come late and quit early; spent most 
of their night at their meetings, and the weeds 
thrived better than the vegetables under their care; 
so I discharged them and hired sinners in their place, 
with better results." While we admit that Spur- 
geon was a great and successful preacher, we would 
not take a man that used tobacco and died with 
the gout, for a model. 

To get at man's trouble we have got to go back 
to Creation and Eden, for we cannot successfully 
prescribe for a disease until we find its origiix, cause 
and nature, and that has been the trouble with mod- 
ern theologians; they have been trying to treat sin 
without knowing what it was. God never made a 
mastake, and when he created Adam he placed him 
in honor next to himself and above all the angels, 
and only capable of committing but one sin, and 
that he could have earsily refrained from, for God 
gave him but one command, and that was not to 
eat of the tree; but God knew he would, and knew 
the serpent would tempt him. If Adam had not fall- 
en man never could have earned his future reward, 
for it would be their nature to love and obey God 
as it is the horse or dog to obey their master, so 
they carry out the instinct of their nature and do 
not earn a future reward. Adam's sin entirely re- 
versed man's nature, so the things that he most 
desires to do are the most heinous in God's sight, 
and the things that God would have him do are the 
most displeasing to him. It is true in nature that 
when a man makes a personal sacrifice to please or 
benefit another he earns a reward, but not Vviien he 
lives for his own pleasures only. So when we aban- 
don the pleasures of this life we earn a future re- 



10 

ward. ^A'Len Adam by breaking a single law fell 
from the great honor and glory in which he was 
placed and dragged down his seed with him to be 
instead of a son of God a nameless what is it, God 
intended that thousands of years should elapse be- 
fore any one should find the way back to God's favor 
and sonshipj and then only by great trials and suf- 
fering. 

As soon as man fell God commenced the work of 
his restitution by teaching him to offer burnt sacri- 
fices, which was a type of the great sacrifice that 
w^as to follow\ Do not deceive yourself by thinking 
that these offerings typify Christ's sufferings only, 
yet that las been the stumbling stone over which 
the church has fallen for 1500 years, while the Bible 
nowhere teaches it. I do not mean the cross, but 
its true meaning. If man had not fallen Christ 
and his elect could never have had a kingdom for 
want of subjects. All who obeyed the law of burnt 
offerings and all who lived before Christ that will 
be saved, will be resuiTected and placed on the re- 
newed earth w^here Christ and his saints will reign 
over them during the millenium, at the end of w^hich 
they will be subjected to a great tribulation, in w^hich 
a few^ will be washed white but the great majority 
will fall and be lost This applies equally to mem- 
bers of the popular church of to-day. But God has 
far better things for those of us who wish, and mil 
pay the price. 

There are three steps leading to the Kingdom. 
First, conversion, w^hich is turning from our evil 
ways and receiving pardon for past sins; but this 
does not change our nature nor desire for sin, nor 
lessen Satan's power over us, but is w^hat all profes- 
sors have or should receive. This is ?s far as Paul 
got when he wrote, '' When I would do good evil is 
present with me," and, " the things I hate, them 1 
do.'' But he had reached another experience w^hen 



11 

he wrote, '' Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your 
sake and fill up on my part that which is lacking of 
the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's 
sake, which is the church." Enduring this affliction 
enabled him to say, " No longer I live but Christ 
liveth in me." How he got this experience ought to 
greatly interest us all. First by receiving the Holy 
Spirit, which all are permitted to receive if they 
earnestly seek Him, anS He will convict us of all sin 
and lead us into all truth and show us what sacri- 
fice will be pleasing to God. The Spirit does not 
make us perfect as some teach, but shows us what 
is between us and Christ and how to remove it and 
strengthens us to all endurance. The third and 
final step is to be whipped into the kingdom or son- 
ship, for we will not go in Avithout, for whom the 
Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son 
w^hom he receiveth. If we are without chastening 
whereof all sons are partakers, then are we bastards 
and not sons. Is the modern church producing bas- 
tards or sons? 

A lady took to her home a homeless orphan. She 
said, I must try and prove his honesty. So she took 
him to his room and said, '' You may have that old 
bureau to put your clothes in, and the old tru^npery 
in it you may put in this box, it has not been in use 
for years." She had put a quarter of a dollar among 
its contents, and when she left him to clean it out 
she left the door ajar and quietly came back to see 
what came of the quarter. When he found it he 
put it in his pocket, saying, ^' Surely it has been here 
for years and no one knows of it," but on second 
thought, he said, " Surely this is not mine and it 
doubtless belongs to the good lady that so kind- 
ly gave me a home, and shall I repay her by robbing 
her! " So he took it from his pocket and put it on 
the bureau and knelt down and prayed God to for- 
give the thought of his heart and to give strength 



12 

to resist temptation. The next moment he was in 
her arms^ and said, '' My dear boy, I fear I have tried 
you too ►severely, and fear my own sons would not 
have resisted as well. You are no longer my ser- 
vant, but I will make you my son, and you shall 
share equally with my own sons.'' That is just the 
way the Lord tries us who shall sit as a refiner and 
purifier of silver^ and he shall iDurify the sons of 
Levi and purge them as gold and silver; but who 
may abide the day of his coming. 

Conversion, as I said, removes love for sin with- 
out removing temptation or desire for it, while this 
scourging frees us from Satan's power and makes 
all sin so heinous that it is impassable, because it 
destroys original sin and makes us like Adam be- 
fore the fall, only to repeat his sin will be beyond 
our power. To illustrate, one man drinks whiskey 
and becomes intoxicated, another does not like whis- 
key but drinks lager, with the same result; another 
ale, another wine, another brandy, and another cider, 
and all with the same result. While they ^^re all 
different the alcohol, the intoxicating propertj^, is 
the same in all. Kemove that and they could drink 
any or all without effect. But remove the alcohol and 
the drinkers would soon lose their appetite for them. 
What alcohol is to these drinks, original sin is to 
the sins of the world. Eemove that and you will 
find that you are dead to the world but alive to 
God, and you can say mth Paul, '' No longer I live 
but Christ iiveth in me." That is what Christ meant 
when he said, '' Ye must be born again." 

When I attended the district school in the little 
^' tadpole " schoolhouse, part of m}^ work was to 
solve arithmetical problems or " do sums," as we 
called it, some of which had several answers. It 
was not sufficient to get one or two of them right, 
but all of them must correspond with the answers 
in the book or the teacher would say your work i^ 



13 

all wrong, rub it out and begin again. So it is in 
solving the great problem of sin and salvation. The 
Bible is our text book and the Holy Spirit is our 
teacher, and when we get a faith that takes in the 
whole Bible we will know that we have got the cor- 
rect solution. If we say we are tempted to sin or 
do evil we have not got this answ^er. We know that 
whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that 
is begotten of God keepeth himself and the wicked 
one toucheth Mm not. He that committeth sin is 
of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not 
commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him and he 
cannot sin because he is born of God. We are then 
admitted in the great family of God. Christ said, 
'' He that sinneth is the servant of sin, and the ser- 
vant abideth not in the house forever, but the son 
abideth. forever." When we have received the di- 
vine nature it will be as impossible for us to sin as 
it is for God. You cannot expect me to explain 
all in this First Step, but if you follow me I will en- 
deavor to make all plain. It was not enough for me 
to get the required answer, but I had to tell how 
I got it and to give a reason for working it so. So 
we must give a reason for the hope that is in us, as 
how we are saved by Christ's death, and why God 
could not save the world without the sacrifice of 
his son. 



SECOND STEP. 



The Holy Spirit. 



" Be not drunken T\itli wine wherein is excess, but 
be ye filled with the Spirit.''— Eph. 5:18. ^' If you 
have not the Spirit of Christ you ^e none of his.'' 

For four thousand years salyation was obtainable 
to those who sought it mthout the aid of the Holy 
Spirit, or before He was given to the world, and it 
is as much so now^ and His power and presence is 
but little felt in most, churches to-day, jez they 
imagine they are guided and taught by Him, as they 
think all receive Him at the time of conversion, and 
1 see the revisers of the New Testament have 
changed " Have you received the Holy Ghost since 
3'Ou believed " to '' Did you receive the Holy Ghost 
when you believed," in Acts 19: 2. If all did why 
did Paul ask the question? And the answer proves 
an exception to the rule, if it is the rule. Also, the 
Samaritans did not receive Him at the time of their 
conversion and baptism. Acts, 8: 14-17. Neither did 
Paul receive Him at the time and place of his con- 
version. Dr. Garden says He is received subse- 
quently to and independent from the time and action 
of conversion. 

He shall convict the world of sin. When a minis- 
ter enters his pulpit filled with the Spirit, He, the 
Spirit, exerts an irresistible power over the sinners 
of his congregation that causes them to cry out in 
agony and seek the Lord many times before an invi- 
tation is given. It was that Spirit that caused an 
audience to cling to the back of their seats when 
a filled preacher was preaching on sliding into hell. 



15 

It was the cause of Moody's success of ten years ago, 
and is the only true source of success one can have, 
for the Spirit is the only convicting power in the 
world, yet many conduct what they call successful 
revivals who have never received Him. They can 
convince men by argument that it is their duty to 
be converted and join the church. They will say 
hold up your hand if you want us to pray for you. 
I guess you are all right now, so come and join our 
churcb; while they have never been convicted nor 
converted. Our churches are too full of such mem- 
bers today. I heard a minister say in a sermon, 
''I ha\e got over 100 members, but would leather 
have ten good working members than to have the 
whole of you." Another said, '' If the devil came 
and took half of you I would not dare to say: Stop, 
devil ! For I would not know as he was taking more 
than belonged to him." The members are not alone 
to blame^ for a minister recently in speaking of busi- 
ness matters, said : '' It has got so that no one is to 
be trusted.'' I told him the old adage, ^' Like priest, 
like people," holds good, for I had sent or handed 
my book to over 500 ministers, with a request to 
give their opinion, and if they could prove me wrong 
in any part to let me know. Many promised to do 
so when they took it, but I have their united ap- 
proval, if silence gives consent, for I have enough of 
that to fill volumes. I got one response, and he 
said a certain passage should be taken spiritually, 
but failed to tell me how, and did not give his ad- 
dress, so I could answer. To spiritualize the literal 
teaching of Christ is taking the Spirit witii a ven- 
geance, or a polite way for saying we do not believe 
it Paul's prophecy to Timothy, 4: 3, ''For the 
time will come when they will not endure sound 
doctrine, but after their own lust shall they heap 
to themselves tea chers having itching ears, and they 
shall turn away their ears from the truth aQd shall 



16 

be turned unto fables.'' That means they will have 
teachers whose ears will itch to know what will be 
best pleasing to their hearers and not what is most 
profitable. 

'^ Be not drunken with wine wherein is excess, but 
be ye filled with the Spirit." The power of the 
Spirit is compared to intoxication in its appearance, 
so those who first saw His effect supposed them to 
be drunken and Peter had to explain. I am sorry 
to SRy that not many such explanations are neces- 
sary in these days. Occasionally we hear of some 
who are prostrated by His power, while modest pro- 
fessors ridicule. It is not only necessary to be filled, 
but remain full. Many press forward and obtain 
Him and receive some of His gifts, so sinners fall 
before them, as in Moody's past experience, or the 
sick are raised by their magic touch, but it did not 
last very long, for the road He marked out was too 
rugged and the cross too burdensome and something 
was asked that would not be popular for them to 
teach, and so the Kingdom is never reached. The 
spiritual wilderness between Egypt and the Jordan 
is as thickly strewed with the carcasses of the fallen 
as the literal one was. We must first stop to count 
the cost, for if there is anything on earth that w^e 
X>rize above Christ's Kingdom we had not better 
start, for it will surely be required, for He said: 
'^ Unless a man forsaketh all that he hath he cannot 
be my disciple." 

Our religion is not a mechanical religion that one 
can work himself in by outward acts only, but a 
spiritual religion. The access to the Kingdom can 
only be obtained by the aid of the Holy Spirit, yet 
we can obtain a salvation by service without Him 
but not a crown. His office is to take possession of 
our temples and by teaching assist us- by stimulating 
us to endure all necessary cleansing to prepare it 
for the abode of the Son of God. Many hold that 



17 

we are perfect as soon as we receive the Comforter, 
but this is not so, any more than it is true a student 
is graduated as soon as he enters college. TIhe 
Spirit's work can be illustrated best by the telephone 
wire stretched from us to God and through Him 
we send and receive messages. '' He takes' the 
things of God and shows them unto us," but as we 
cannot telephone without the connecting wire, 
neither can we approiach to Christ without the 
Spirit. He will teach all who will listen to and obey 
His voice. When He tells us to do or not do a thing 
and we refuse He will talk to us no more, but leave 
us. 

As to what method the Spirit uses in teaching us 
is a subject on which theologians differ. Some hold 
that the Spirit only uses the 'Word, or Bible, to teach 
with, while those that hold that faith have divided 
the church into 1000 different sects, all of which 
differ in some points of doctrine. I heard D. L. 
Moody teach that in a sermon preached in the great 
Brooklyn revival of 1894, and said he had no faith 
in them who claim to have dreams and visions; 
while others believe that ^^ In the last days saith 
God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and 
they shall dream dreams, see visions and prophecy," 
as recorded in the Second of Acts. We know when 
Caleb and Joshua visited the pomised land they gave 
a correct report and proved it by bringing some of 
the fruit and were permitted to dwell in it, while the 
rest brought an evil report and no fruit and were 
not permitted to visit it again, nor they that accept- 
ed their report. So it is with those who try to cry 
down the voice of the Spirit. 

If my Holy Ghost lost his gift of speech I would 
send him to a mute asylum and try to ^et him 
cured. The trouble of those who cry down Spiritual 
gifts is, they have no Spirit to talk to them. When 
He comes He will bring His gifts with Him. It 



18 

may be healing or exhortation prophecy, or visions, 
but what it is accept, and as Paul says, ^' Covet 
earnestly the best gifts." A lady told me she had 
a gift of visions but did not want them, as the teach- 
er she was following did not wish her to, as she 
had them herself. But I think neither see them 
now. Another said she was afraid of being led 
astray by them. I heard a Free Methodist minister 
say the Spirit did not use dreams and visions, but 
if people wanted dreams let them eat a hearty sup- 
per before retiring. His member, a spiritual lady, 
kept a boarding house, and one of her boarders stole 
an overcoat. He was suspected and the house was 
reached in vain, when she dreamed it was hidden un- 
der the floor in the garret, and there found it. Here 
w^e have theory and experience. I attended another 
meeting the same day, when the minister took the 
same subject and said that sometimes the Lord 
taught us by the means of dreams and visions. Well, 
the tree ivs known bv its fruit, and the fruits of the 
Spirit are evidence of His presence. I could relate 
enough such experience that has come under my 
notice to fill a small volume. In 1803, Joseph Hoag, 
a Quaker preacher, saw a vision while working in 
the field, in which first the division in his church, 
which occurred nine years later was revealed, then 
divisions in other churches and their worldliness, 
then the great Civil war and the overthrow of slavery 
and the setting up of antichrist's kingdom in this 
country. A sister-in-law was converted, after which 
I urged her to seek the abiding comforter. Soon she 
dreamed she was climbing a very steep and rickety 
stairway, which was covered with snow^ and ice, so 
she had to climb on her hands and knees. They 
were very high and difficult. She kept looking up, 
for it is not safe to rest our eyes on the world while 
we are traveling heavenward. Bunyan stopped his 
ears and cried: Life! Life! She reached the top 



19 

and found herself in a beautiful park, more beautiful 
than she had ever seen and as extensive every way 
as the eye could reach, and she was on the very top 
and could see no place higher than where she stood. 

After a while she began to give way to the pleas- 
ures of the world, and she had another dream. She 
was climbing up the same stairs again, but not look- 
ing up, but thought she could find an easier way 
to get up. So she went down and found another 
staircase of broad and beautiful marble steps, and 
said, '' I can climb up here so much easier.'^ So 
she started, but found it did not lead to the same 
place. 

A friend who had manv remarkable dreams, 
dreamed that none but Jacksonions would obtain 
the Kingdom. Jackson was a man with an iron 
will and Avould do what he thought was right if the 
whole world opposed him. A man that is carried 
away by every wind of doctrine or influence from 
doing what he knows to be right by others will not 
get there. After he has done all he must stand. 
Spurgeon says the man who will not in the least 
change the message that the Lord gave him to de- 
liver to please the greatest man or to draw the 
largest congregation, will move the world, and that 
any man will move the world that will not let the 
world move him. No man can lead another into the 
Kingdom. Each one has got to get the Sx)irit for 
himself and follow Him. But human agencies may 
teach and encourage him. 

Christ will never look on the church books to see 
who are his, for he will not take the nominal church 
to himself, but a people out of the churches whose 
name are written in heaven, and the farther any one 
gets from church creeds and bonds the nearer they 
will be to the Kingdom,. First the blade, which is 
conversion, then the ear, which is receiving the 
Spirit, which, if followed, will lead to perfection, 



20 

which is tlie full corn in the ear. Then comes the 
glorious harvest of the end' of the world, for the 
full truth is not to be preached until then. Our 
theological colleges are a great hindrance to the ad- 
yancement of Christ's Kingdom, for men do not go 
to learn what the Holy Ghost teaches nor what the 
Bible says, but what man teaches and how to twist 
the Bible to fit their creed. I knew an old minister 
who commenced preaching Ayhen young, w^ith but 
little education, and was successful in winning many 
souls, but after he had preached a few years he went 
to college, and it turned him out a yery polished 
preacher, and he grew old in the service, but he is 
said to not have been instrumental in a single con- 
version afi.er his education. Another took the Guide 
to Holiness and preached holiness when but a youth, 
and was soon able to baptise 250 converts. After- 
ward he renounced it and preached against the gifts 
of the Spirit to a fuller extent than I ever heard 
any other, and I doubt if he can find a person who 
has been converted by his preaching in the last 20 
years. He is still preac^hing. The Holy Spirit honors 
those who honor Him. I was converted 25 years 
before I T^as taught to seek the Holy Spirit, but 
when I learned that there was another blessing for 
me I sought and found it, and with Bishop Taylor 
I can say since then, I have been gromng, growing, 
growing. I visited a relative in Brooklyn who had 
been a professor 25 years and asked her if she had 
grown in gra^e any since her conversion. She said, 
not a bit. I told her to get the Spirit and lei Him 
teach her. I called a year later and found her aglow 
with the Spirit, and to my question she said she was 
growing, and it was the happiest year of her life. 
If you have not the spirit of Christ you are none of 
his. Seek earnestly the Spirit until He reveals Him- 
self to vou. 



THIRD STEP. 



Holy Men of Old. 



I am not an advocate of hero worship; those men 
wliom the world has called s^reat because of their 
acliievement in battle are no more to be compared to 
that class of men whom I choose to honor than a 
molehill is to be compared to the mighty Alps. For 
they were great! Not like Caesar, stained with 
blood; but only great as they were good. They were 
the men we should delight to honor, who for the 
sake of God's truth were not afraid to suffer that 
they could have part with Him who preferred a 
crown of thorns to a royal diadem and a rugged 
cross to all of the kingdoms which the serpent had 
to give, and will find one who will accept. These 
men chose peril, nakedness, the sword, imprison- 
ment, torture of the most excruciating kind that evil 
genius could devise, which was a living death; such 
as standing on redhot iron until their feet were 
burned off; their flesh raked with iron combs until 
their skin was nearly all off and them covered with 
salt and hanged bv the thumbs with the truth rather 
than have all tlie honors that an empire could give 
with error. I refer to the fathers of the church who 
lived during the first three centuries, which is called 
the AntiNicene period, or the time between Christ 
and the Council of Mce. That was the glorious 
period of the church. Christ had left to the world 
through His disciples a perfect religion. While 
without was fighting, persecution and death, within 
was a peace that the world could neither give nor 
take aAvay, and' a brotherly love that knew no 
bounds. Well might they fall on Paul's neck and 



22 

weeping cover him with kisses on taking leave of 
him. These men did not speak their own words, 
but spake and wrote as they w^ere moved by the Holy 
Ghost. Think yon that the inspired writings are 
enclosed in the lids of our Bible? I tell you, no. 
Our Bible was compiled after the decline of the 
church by uninspired men, from which James and 
Bevelations and Hebrews were excluded for a time. 
In 1851 in a Convent on Mount Sinai a manuscript 
bible was found, supposed to be the oldest in exist- 
ence. It contained beside what is in our Bible, the 
Epistle of Barnabas, in 21 chapters, and the three 
remarkable books called the Shepherd of Hermas, 
which was the most popular of any books during the 
first four centuries, and are without question in- 
spired and teach the deep, rich truth of the King- 
dom. Hermas, the author, lived in Riome and Paul 
?!:alutes him in Romans, 16: 14. Whv should not the 
Epistle of Barnabas be received as well as those of 
Paul? He also was numbered with the Apostles 
and was in the work before him, and was numbered 
with the seventy disciples that Christ sent out, and 
the Eathers quote from his as well as Hermas the 
same as they do from Paul's. Barnabas suffered 
martyrdom not long after he separated from Paul. 
» As John Mark tells us. Clemment of Rome must not 
be overlooked. He was converted by the preaching 
of Barnabas and became Peter's companion and was 
noted for his earnestness and deep piety. He left 
four valuable epistles. The two on virginity are 
very impor-tant. He was Bishop of Rome. 

The holy Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostle 
John, and is spoken of with much reverence by sev- 
eral of the Fathers. The account of his martyrdom 
is given by those w^ho witnessed it. " As the flames 
blazed forth v/ith great fury, we, who witnessed it, 
beheld a great miracle, for the fire shaped itself in 
th^ form of an arch and he appeared within as gold 



23 

or silver iu a furnace. Moreover we perceived such 
a sweet odor coming from the pile as if frank-incense 
had been smoking there. At length, when these 
wicked men perceived that he could not be burned, 
they commanded an executioner to go near and 
pierce him through with a dagger, when there came 
forth a dove and a great quantity of blood so that 
the fire was extinguished." The same writers called 
him a. prophet and said all that he said had or would 
come to pass. 

There are records of several of the Apostolic 
Church that, like Daniel and his three friends, 
neither fire nor wild beasts had the power to harm. 
Saint John was also cast into a caldron of boiling 
oil and sustained no harm. God is not a respecter 
of persons and would not have so miraculously pre- 
berved them without cause. That reason will be 
perfectly cleav when we understand what the mys- 
tery of God is, as none of the thousands of just men 
who suffered since the mystery was lost were thus 
preserved. Among the former was a young heathen 
woman named Thakely, who was both preserved 
from fire and wild beasts after, her conversion by the 
preaching of Paul. A very interesting account of 
her life and miraculous preservation is given in a 
book entitled: ''Acts of Paul and Thakely;" which 
is spoken of and commended by the early Fathers. 

Justin MartYY, as the Holy Martyr is called, gives 
no uncertain sound. His two pleas for the Chris- 
tians, addressed to the Emperor and Roman Senate, 
are very important, as they show the mode of wor- 
ship and practices of the Christians of his day and 
shows the injustice of their persecution and the false- 
ness of the charges against them. He gives con- 
clusive proof that the mystery that is not now public- 
ly taught anywhere was taught and followed in the 
church in his day and the persecution it caused. 
His plea availed him nothing, as he became a victim 



24 

of the martyrdom tbat he tried to save from others. 
The exact date of his writing is not known, but it 
must have been near the time of Paul, as he speaks 
of a petition being sent to Felix, the Governor, for 
religious liberty, and we know that he imprisoned 
Paul for two years and was Governor but ten years. 
He wrote, also, other important church papers, 
among w^hich was the dialogue ^yith Trypho, the 
Jew. 

Ignatius was a contemporary vnth Poly carp, an 
officer in the church. He wrote a dozen or more 
epistles to the churches, Polycarp and others. But 
like Jehu, had more zeal than knowledge and desired 
to show his zeal for the Lord, so he desired fr- make 
a grand sacrifice to the Lord, as he said he wtis not 
perfect and thought his martyrdom would mrike him 
so, and went to the Eoman tribunal and declared 
himself a Christian and desired to be fed to the lions, 
thinking by digesting him would make up that 
which was lacking of the sufferings of Christ. So 
he served them for a hearty dinner. It is clear that 
he was ignorant of the mystery by which he could 
have been perfect without sacrificing his life, as 
Paul did. See Colossians 1: 21-29. " While there is 
a great rcAvard for those who are persecuted for 
righteousness sake, we have no right to seek it, for 
if we do we are no better than self murderers.'* The 
writers of the martyrdom of Polycarp tell of two 
men who voluntarily gave themselves up but when 
they saw the fierceness of the beasts they recanted 
and offered sacrifices to idols. 

Origen, the son of Leonides, a Holy Christian mar- 
tyr, who lived from 185 to 254, belongs to that class 
that Spurgeon describes as soaring: up like a rocket 
and coming down like the stick. He received his in- 
structions from his venerable father and accepted 
all of the mystery of the kingdom. His father suf- 
fered when he was a youth and he was willing to 



25 

share the same fate, but his mother persuaded him 
not to, so he recanted the most important of all 
truths and so saved his miserable life at the expense 
of his spiritual. One step downward opened the 
way for more. Haying lost the Spirit he was left 
to drift like a ship without sail or rudder. He de- 
nied the inspiration of the gospels, for which he was 
expelled from the church, and it is said that he 
finally recanted the whole Christian faith. The 
amusing part of the story is that all modern theolo- 
gians praise him for errors and condemn him for 
his great virtue. They fail to see the deep truth of 
the mystery connected with his life. He was a man 
of much learning and ability, and they class him 
among the highest of. the Fathers, while I give him 
the lowest place. His writings are numerous, but 
a small portion of them have been translated and 
published. 

Clement of Alexandria lived over 100 years later 
than Clement of Rome, or from 153 to 217. His 
writings fill over 400 double column pages and are 
very interesting, although 23 pages that would to me 
be the most important are printed in Latin only, and 
I am unable to read them, but hope to soon be able 
to have them translated. He heldi some important 
truths not taught in the modern church, but I do 
not know that it was not mixed with error, or how 
he stood on the mvsterv. 

Montanus appeared in the Church about 160. He 
left no writings, and what we know of him »ve learn 
from others. Bishop supremacy had begun to rise 
in the church, and the bishops ruled that they were 
the supreme head and must be obeyed in all things, 
while he taught that the Holy Spirit was the su- 
preme power in the church and must be obeyed in 
preference to the bishops, and if obeyed, all of the 
prophetic and miraculous power of the apostolic age 
would return to the church. Had the church fol- 



26 

lowed his teachings instead of the bishops it would 
not have fallen with the bishops. He claimed to be 
a prophet with a good reason, for he took the only 
way to get the spirit of prophecy. 

Tertulien in his book against Praxeas, who denied 
the Trinity, claiming there was but one God and he 
only was born of the Virgin and suffered, says: 
'' After the Bishop of Rome had acknowledged the 
prophetic gifts of Montanus, Presco and Maximilla, 
and in consequence of the acknowledgement had be- 
stowed his peace on the churches of Asia and Phry- 
gia. Praxeas by importunity urging false accusa- 
tions against the prophets themselves and their 
churches and insisting on the authority of the 
bishop's predecessors in the see, compelling him to 
recall the pacific letter which he had issued, as well 
as to desist from his purpose of acknowledging the 
said gifts. By this Praxeas did a twofold t-ervice 
for the devil at Rome. He drove away prophecy, and 
he brought in heresy. He put to flight the Paraclete 
(Holy Spirit), and he crucified the Father." Here 
we have the germ that finally overthrew the spirit 
and essence uf the Apostolic Church, and this uni- 
tarian spirit of heresy grew until Montanus and his 
adherents were expelled from the church, among 
wliich was Tertulian, the greatest light and glory 
of his century. Although this did not occur until 
about the end of the second century, or a century 
after the death of the last surviving apostle, who 
died at the age of 120 (if he died, as like Moses, his 
sepulcher was never found). In denying His gifts 
they \drtually deny the spirit, for His only service 
is to give gifts unto men, and does not the spirit of 
Praxism rule the churches of to-day? Let a man 
come in claiming the spirit of prophecy and try to 
teach any other doctrine than that laid down in their 
prescribed creeds and see if he mil not share the 
fate of Montanus and his men. Recentlv I heard 



27 

of a minister who was forced to resign his charge 
for preaching that we are advancing near the time 
of the end. After the expulsion of these holy men 
(which is the first case of persecution for the sake 
of truth by the church recorded), they formed them- 
selves in an indej)endent church, which existed until 
the 5th or 6 th centurv. 

Tertullian! What about him? Language is in- 
adequate; at least any that I can utter. I can say 
with the poet: 

'' Too high is the theme for my harp's lowly numbers, 
Yet fain would twine me a wreath for that name, 
That jjrouclly stands forth in the tablet of glory, 
Unsullied by faction, untarnished by guile. 
The loftiest theme for the bard's raptured story." 

He lived from 145 to 220. His w^ritings fill about 
800 large, double column pages of the Anti-Nicene 
Fathers, and there appears to be no point of spirit- 
ual truth untouched by him, yet a number of his 
works have been lost. Bishop Coxe, D. D., the 
American editor of the '' Fathers," can not be ex- 
pected to indorse his Montanus views (as he was a 
bishop and believed in bishop supremacy), com- 
mends him at one moment and condemns him the 
next. He compares him w^ith the heretic Tatian, 
who is unworthy to be mentioned with him, and 
says, '' In speaking of Tatian I laid the foundation 
of what I wish to speak of Tertullian. Let God only 
be their judge; let us gi'atefully recognize the debt 
w^e ow^e to them. Let us read them as we read the 
works of King Solomon." When he says something 
to broad and grand for Coxe's narrow mind, he adds 
in a note, " Montanism appears here," when he is 
writing on a subject that Montanus was never op- 
posed on. It might be said of him, he told the truth, 
the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 



28 

If jou want to know the practices of the church in 
his aay, read Tertullian. If you want to know about 
the mode and confessions used in baptism, read Ter- 
tullian. If you want to know how^ Peter got the 
keys, read Tertullian. If you want to know if the 
sick were healed by the prayer of faith, read Tertul- 
lian. If you would know^ the mystery of Christ, read 
Tertullian. If you would learn of the second bap- 
tism, read Tertullian. And so I might go on to the 
end of the chapter. Yet, strange as it may appear, 
this old soldier of Christ was allowed to keep his 
liberty and die at an advanced age in his own home 
in those days of peril, and it can only be accounted 
for by his wisdom and shrewdness. When he want- 
ed to say things that were forbidden to be pitolished 
to the world, he addressed them to his w^ife, for a 
man is not supposed to be restricted in what he says 
to his wife, and if some one else gets hold of it that 
is their business, not his. Cyprian w^as said to be 
his disciple and lived and wrote his 82 epistles 40 
or 50 years later, but was a different man, as he 
taught supremacy of the bishops, but not a universal 
bishop, but that each was supreme in his ovrn dis- 
trict He shows that error and superstition had 
crept in and that salvation was impossible outside 
of the pale of the church, and is the first one that 
mentlions infant baptism. Tei-tullian wotiid have 
said something about it in his lengthy articles on 
baptism if it had been practiced then, as he speaks 
of the baptism of children and recommends tiiat it 
be deferred, and shows that sprinkling is not prac- 
ticed in the church, but is practiced by stealth out- 
side, and calls it stealing a march on God. Cyprian 
wrote about 250 A. D. Besides his epistles he left 
his treatises and other writings. 

Amons: the last of the holv men who ruled the 

~ I. 

church was Peter, the martyr, who, like his name- 
sake, was filled with holy zeal and endured perse- 



29 

cution and spent years in exile and concealment. 
He was dearly beloved by Ms church, who were 
ready at all times to lay down their life fc»r him. 
They had short periods of religious liberty when he 
would be restored to his charge, for he was a bishop; 
when it was over he would have to flee. Ue was 
also persecuted by another bishop who couid not 
accept his holy teaching. He was linally condemned 
and imprisoned, when hundreds of his friends sur- 
rounded his prison and prevented his execution by 
watching day and ndght. When they decided to 
bring an army to overpower his friends ami when 
he heard it he told the soldiers they might come by 
night and make a hole in the wall and he would 
come out and they could fulfill their orders, which 
they did, leaving his friends watching an em pry pris- 
on, as they did not know of his execution until morn« 
ing. He did this to save the lives of his friends, 
which was commendable. He was a prophet and 
foretold that two of his successors in office would 
soon share his fate, after which the church would 
have peace, which was fulfilled. Qhrist appeared 
to him in prison with his garments torn m as to ex- 
pose his nudeness and said Arias had torn them, 
and that two men would come to him that day to 
urge him to reinstate him in the church, for ne had 
been expelled, but not to do it, and to send t^ ord to 
his successor to not do it, which was fulfilled. He 
was beheaded A. D. 312. 

Arius was the man that up to his time created 
the greatest tumult ^ii the church, and on his ac- 
count the Council of Nice was called. He was a 
Unitarian, denying that Christ was equal to or the 
same in substance as the Father, and had by his 
eloquence and learning drawn many to his opinion, 
but was expelled at a council at Alexandria and 
afterwards reinstated at a council at Bethynia, and 
Oonstantine called another to Nice, over wlrch he 



presided. There were 318 bisihops present, and all 
but two decided against him. The Emperor passed 
an edict banishing him and commanding all of his 
writings to be burned under pain of death. Three 
years later the Emperor was persuaded by Arius' 
friends to recall him, and in 330 the Empeior or- 
dered that he be reinstated, but the bishops refused, 
and the tumult continued until 336, when he got the 
Emperor to pass an edict that he should be received 
in the church and receive the communion from the 
hand of the bishop, and his friends made a triamphal 
march towards the church, but Arius was taken 
with a violent hemorrhage and died before he reach- 
ed it 

I have expanded this article beyond the limit I 
alloted to myself, but time is too short to speak of 
all of these holy men and it seems as I have but just 
begun, as their writings fill 24 volumes in the Edin- 
burgh edition, or eight large volumes of 600 lo 800 
double columu pages in the American edition, and 
were not published in this country until about ten 
years ago, by A. Cleveland Ooxe, D. D., Bis bop of 
Buffalo, who died last July. He has rend-jred a 
great service to his country, but I fear that his great- 
est inducement was the profit, ass they are only sold 
in complete sets, and the first price was |3 per vol- 
ume and |2.50 for an index volume that was added; 
then he raised the price to |3.50, then to |4. Chas. 
Scribner's Sons, New York, now publish them in 
10 volumes for |20. I count them the most im- 
portant of all of the books published to-day, as 
they give the teachings of the united church founded 
by Christ and the Apostles, and no modern work on 
church theology is to be compared with it, as much 
is written by inspiration. 

The death of Arius did not put an end to Arian- 
ism, for he had made many converts. Constantine, 
the first Christian emperor so called, had become 



:^1 

one and denied the divinitj of Christ, so they had 
a Ohristianity at Rome without a Ohrist. His son 
and successor also embraced it. After him idolatry 
filled the throne. When the devil used Praxeas to 
wrest the spirit and His gifts from the church, he 
sapped its foundation and the rest was easy. 

While Cyprian taught important truths he also 
taught errors, claiming there was no salvation out- 
side of the regular church; while he admitted for 
baptism, immersion, pouring and sprinkling, as well 
as being the first to endorse infant baptism, he de- 
clared it invalid if administered outside of the regu- 
lar church, and such must be rebaptised before thej' 
could be admitted. While the Nicene council decid- 
ed the Arean heresy correctly, they locked the door 
against the entrance of the church into the king- 
dom of Christ and opened it to creed-makiuf^, and 
made the first of which there is any record, as the so 
called Apostles' creed cannot be traced back farther 
than the fourth century, and the earliest copies 
make no mention of the descent into hell. When 
men make a rule to govern the faith of mankind 
they relieve the great teacher, the spirit, of any fur- 
ther service. Creed-making was easier begun than 
ended, and all were not willing to accept the Nicene 
creed, so they made another, and that was not better 
accepted, and so creeds were multiplied until there 
were soon not less than eleven, and that number has 
been multiplied many times since. 

When the spirit's gift and the mystery of ihe in- 
ner Chiist life was wrested from the church, its fall 
was rapid. When the external persecution ended, 
the internal war increased, and peace was for all 
time past taken from the church. The Arian dis- 
pute lasted through several centuries. Maritins, 
the Emperor, A. D. 590, commanded Gregory, the 
Great, bishop of Rome, to obey John, bishop of Con- 
stantinople, but he would not abide that any bishop 



32 

should be universal above all the re«t. It is said 
of Gregory that he was the basest of all his prede- 
cessors and the best of all his successors, which 
shows its rapid decline. History says, in the year 
1000 relioion was whollv decaved to what it was 
in former times; and from the year 300 to that 
time, many dark institutions were set up in the 
church of the pretended Christians, insomuch that 
it became midnight for darkness and the Pooes be- 
gan to draw the sword in defence of Peter'-s keys 
after every trace of them had been wrested from 
the church and lost. The Pope claims to have them, 
and I demand of him, or his representatives or fol- 
lowers, what they are and what Peter did to earn 
so great a reward, and if he is doing the same 

Many of the Anti-Mcene Fathers wrote from in- 
spiration, and if we are filled with the spirit He 
will enable us to discern between the spiritual and 
natural man. 



FOURTH STEP. 



Imputed Righteousness Answered. 



I recently listened to a sermon from " No man 
that waretli entangleth himself with the affairs of 
this life that he may please him who hath called him 
to be a soldier." 2 Tim. 2: 4. From this text the 
speaker preached imputed righteousness and told 
the oft repeated story of the man that was drafted 
in the late civil war and hired a substitute to take 
his place, who fell in battle, after which he was again 
drafted, but claimed that he was dead to the govern- 
ment as his substitute had died for him, and by this 
illustrates Christ's death for us. We will illustrate 
this substitute business a little, as I fail to see any 
of it in the text, for those who become soldiers do 
not furnish substitutes to do their fighting for them. 
God forbid that I should make this a personal at- 
tack upon the preacher in person, for the doctrine 
of imputed righteousness is one of the most unscrip- 
tural and dangerous doctrines taught, yet it is held 
by all christian and catholic denominations (so 
called), yet it has no Bible foundation. The preacher 
quoted was more excusable than most preachers, for 
she was a woman, and her sex are excused from 
engaging in warfare by both civilized and heathen 
ni'tions, and are expected to do all of their fighting 
through substitutes. 

If this man had died in his substitute why did not 
his widow apply and get the pension due a soldier's 
widow, as no law can compel a woman to live with 
a dead man, If a man went to court the widow, I 



34 

think lie would run against a very lively corpse. No 
brave soldier filled with love of country would, when 
his country was in peril, sit in his home and send a 
foreigner to fight in his room for fear that he wouM 
not be as valiant as himself, as the government 
v/(.uld not accept citizens as substitutes as they were 
liable to be drafted themselves, and the only induce- 
ment of the hireling would be the price of his hire, 
and his greatest ambition w^ould be to save his life 
and flee when he saw the w^olf coming, like the hire- 
ling in the parable, for he would not be fighting for 
his country, his altar, or his home. In the Revolution 
the English hired the Hessian soldiers to whip us 
into subjection. Did they do it? He had given the 
life of an alien for his country and had no more to 
give, while he spent his time with his wife and 
orphan (?) children. What a brave soldier! He 
surely deserves a crown. Would we ever have saved 
our country's flag with such patriotism? When 
Patrick Henry said in his ever living speech, " Give 
me liberty or give me death," did he mean the death 
of an alien, unknown to him? Some foreigners like 
La Fayette, De Kalb and Steuben, have, by their self- 
denial and courage, proved valiant soldiers and were 
r.iised to the head of armies. Suppose that had been 
the fortune of the substitute, could the principal 
then say: You have earned all of these honors in 
my name for me while I have been living at my ease 
in safety, but now I will take the place at the head 
of the army and you can retire; you have shed some 
of your blood for my country and I will wear the 
scars; you have lost an arm but I will wear the emp- 
ty sleeve; you have earned a pension, I will receive 
it; you won a crown of glory, I will wear it. Would 
ihere be any justice or equity or reason in it? Cer- 
tainly not. Let him w*ho earne^d the crown wear it. 
It is even so with those who presume to attain to 
Christ's righteousness and Idngdom by imputing to 



35 



themselves Christ's righteousness that he earned by 
his suffering. Does a brave soldier remain behind 
f.nd let his general brave the dangers alone? Neither 
will a general give to a deserting soldier the honor 
he earns. Did Christ teach imputed righteousness 
when He said, ^' Let him who will come after me 
take up his cross and follow me." Or Paul, when 
he said, '' So fight I to keep my body under, lest 
w^hile I am preaching to others I myself become a 
castaway." Or the text or Peter, when he said: 
'^ Since Christ suffered in the flesh for us, arm your- 
selves w^ith the same mind, for he who has suffered 
in the flesh has ceased from sin." Or James, who 
said, '' Be afflicted." Christ suffered to show us how- 
he opened the doors, and there is no other way for 
us to the Kingdom but by suffering. Ye have not yet 
resisted unto blood striving against sin, and if you 
do not '' ye are bastards and not sons," says Paul, 
and will not be admitted into Christ's presence, or 
the Kingdom, for no bastard ever inherited a crown. 
Tertulien who is the grandest of the early fathers. 
Send, '' He who is afraid to suffer will have no part 
with him who suffers, but he who is not afraid to 
suffer will be made perfect in suffering, for he who 
has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin," says 
Peter. '^ And if ye suffer ye shall reign with him," 
says Paul to Timothy. Generals take to themselves 
the glory of their victory, or share it with their 
valiant soldiers, but not with deserters. And it is 
promised reward that urges them to risk their lives. 
Christ endured the cross, despising the shame, and 
is now set down at the right hand of the throne of 
God, and done it for the glory that was set before 
Him. As in Kom. 1:4,'' Christ declared to be the 
Son of God, with power according to the spirit of 
holiness." How did he get this power? By the 
resurrection from the dead, or in other words, by 
his victory over sin and death that gave Him all 



36 



power on earth and in heaven, as He tells us. Is 
there any righteousness for us in this? Does not 
He tread the winepress alone? And does not the 
victory and reward belong to Him alone? Who 
would, if they could, rob Him of any of it? Yet He 
has vouchsafed for us the same victory, the same 
honors, the same crown and power if w^e fig^ht the 
same battle and prove ourselves to be as valiant sol- 
diers. Did Paul presume on Christ's righteousness 
when he said, '' I have fought the good fight, I have 
kept the faith, therefore, there is laid up for me a 
crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous 
Judge, shall give m'e at that day." Before he wrote, 
^' So fight I not as one that breath the air, but to 
keep my body under lest while I am preaching to 
others I myself become a castaway." So we see 
Paul was looking for a reward for service rendered, 
the same as a servant is looking for the wages of 
his hire, only the reward is so great as not to be 
compared with the service required, for Paul says, 
" The sufferings of this present time is not to be com- 
pared with the glory that shall be revealed in us." 
If we get the Holy Spirit and follow Him instead 
of the teachings of men. He will tell us what service 
and sufferings will be acceptable to God. 

To illustrate, suppose A has some labor that he 
wants performed, on which there was a laroe profit. 
B and C takes it. B performed his part and receives 
his part of the price. C goes to the Judge to have 
him compel A to pay him the other half, and states 
his grievance. 

J. Have you performed your iDart of the service? 

O. Me! Service! Why, Judge, what do you take 
me for? I am no servant, but a gentleman; beside 
the labor is degrading. 

J. Are you more of a gentleman than B was, who 
performed his part? 

C, I do not know as I am. 



3' 



J. Was not the rewar'd so much greater than the 
amount of service as not to be compared with it? 

C. Certainly it was. 

J. If you was not willing to do even )a small ser- 
vice to earn a great reward, on what do you base 
your claim? 

O. Why, on E's genero'sity. I thought he might 
do the work for me and give me the reward. 

J. Did he agree to? 

G. No, he said he would show me how, but I did 
not give him a chance. 

You have not a shadow of a caise says the righteous 
Judge. I will throw it out of court. Go perform 
your service then you can claim your reward. 

Put Ghrist in B's case and those who depend on 
Ghrist's righteousness for their reward in G's case, 
who go through the world singing, Jesus bore it all. 
All to him I owe. Instead of 

Shall Jesus bear the cross alone 

And all the world go free? 
No, there's a cross for every one, 

And there's a cross for me. 

The consecrated cross I'll bear. 

Till Christ shall set me free. 
And then go home, a crown to wear; 

For there's a crown for me. 

Is not our God, the God of nature, of equity, 
justice and common sense, and does not imputed 
righteousness oppose all? Would there be any 
sense in punishing the good boy to make the bad boy 
good? Who would care to live in a country where 
the life of a substitute was taken and the murderer 
allowed to go free? If God is the author of imputed 
righteousness. His kingdom is divided against itself 
and cannot stand. 



38 



O, for the wing of the morning that I might fly to 
the utermost parts of the earth, and the Toice of the 
seven thunders, that I might tell the theologians 
that we have a God who has common sense, and 
when Paul said, '^ We have the mind of Christ," he 
did not mean we were a set of idiots. Also Young 
in his '^ Teachings of the Bible " says, " How we are 
accountable for Adam's sin is a mystery that 1 
never heard explained." I honor his honesty, but 
pity his ignorance. If he knew what his sin was he 
would know how it affected him and how it could be 
atoned for, which, if done, would place him where 
Adam was before the fall . 

I saw a catechism used in a Grerman Sunday 
School. All I could read of it was the illustrations. 
The first was a huge snake coiled up in an appletree 
picking the apples and giving them to naked Eve, 
who handed them to nude Adam. If Esop could 
not have manufactured a better fable than the snake 
storv he would never have 2:ot a record. But Eve 
ate the apples just the same, but I have not room 
to enlarge on it here. Tens of thousands have grown 
old trying to write and tell the story and have not 
told it, and do you expect me to tell it in one brief 
sermon? '' He bore our sins in his own body on the 
tree," and like passages seems to teach imputed 
righteousness at first thought, and the lines 
^^ Was it for sins that I had done. 
He groaned upon the tree." 
are misleading as though my own sins committed 
more than one thousand years after He suffered 
would add a bit to his sufferinos, or that the sins of 
the bloody ^N'ero, who painted the streets of Eome 
red with the blood of the martyred christians and 
lighted it with his human torches, would have 
caused Christ to suffer any more than the sins of that 
2;ood bov who '' could not tell a lie." Sinful acts 
are caused by sinful thoughts. An idiot, or infant, 



89 



who is incapable of thinking cannot sin, and sinful 
thoughts arise from a sinful nature. If we crucify 
or destroy our sinful nature we will have no more 
sinful thoughts and will become children of God, 
for God says, '' He who is born of God cannot com- 
mit sin." Can God sin? Certainly not. And when 
we have the mind of Christ we cannot. That is just 
Yvhat Christ came to teach us. He took our nature 
that he received from fallen Adam, kept it under 
subjection, and finally crucified it, which again made 
Him one with God, and told us to do the same. All 
kinds of anathemas have been hurled at Paul be- 
cause the Holy Spirit said by his mouth, " I will not 
allow a woman to teach." While I do not deny thai 
women who do their duty will have the first places 
in the Kingdom, but there are certain services from 
which women are excused, for when He said, 
^' Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and s'cour- 
geth every son whom he receiveth." He did not 
mean daughter. So, as they were excused from re- 
ceiving the severe penalty of the law, they were un- 
qualified to teach it, for a general must lead his 
army. But when the Council of Mcae, 325 after 
Christ, wrested the most vital part or substance of 
the Gospel from the Church and left only the shadow 
by the decree of that council, the men became as 
effeminate as the women, and the latter as capable 
of teaching the shadow as the men, and their assist- 
ance to God's teachers and prophets will be accepted 
of God. 

To the intelligent mind it is more amusing than 
edifying to hear one attempt to explain what he does 
not understand, and especially when he tries to ex- 
plain the existence of a theory that cannot exist; for 
imputed righteousness is in violation of God's laws 
and consequently cannot exist. It reminds me of 
the colored gentleman's effort to explain the work- 
ing of the telegraph. 



40 



Jack — Can you 'splain how they send letters on 
the telegraph? 

Sam — Sartin, sure. 'Spose I could work on it if 
I didn't know all 'bout it. 

Jack — 'Splain it then, for I want to know very 
much. 

Sam — 'Spose there was a long dog that reached 
from here to New York — ■ 

Jack — But there ain't no such long dog. 

Sam — If you don't 'spose there is such a long dog 
I can't 'splain. 

Jack — Well, 'spose then, but I never seed such a 
long dog. 

Sam — Well, 'spose his tail is here and his nose in 
New York. I steps on his tail here and he barks in 
New York. See! 

Jack — O, yes; but how do you work the telegraph? 

Sam — I digs the holes to set the poles in. 

Of all the theologians who have lived since the 
Apostolic age, I place John Bunyan in the first rank, 
for he waded deeper in the mysteries of God than 
any other, but w^'hen he attempted to ford the slough 
of imputed righteousness he got far beyond his 
depth, as he was honest enough to admit, for he says 
in the commencement of his article on the subject, 
c( This is one of the greatest mysteries in the world, 
namely, that a righteousness that resides with a per- 
son in heaven should justify me on earth." That is 
what I call, and that rightly, the mysterious act of 
our redemption in Christ's sufferings as a common 
though, a particular person, and as a sinner, though 
always completely righteous. This is also so mysr 
terious that it goes beyond the reach of all men to 
comprehend it, that one particular man should repre- 
sent all the elect in himself and that the most right- 
eous s'hould die by the hands of a just and holy God 
is a mystery of the greatest depth. 

And now I come to ^how you how the elect are 



41 

concerned therein — that is, in the mysterious act of 
this most blessed one, and this will make this act 
jet more mysterious to you. We will not attempt 
to follow Bunyan farther, or at present help him out 
of his maise, for his attempt to solve what he either 
admits or acknowledges is so deep a mystery to him 
will not be to our edification. Paul says, '' We have 
the mind of Christ." John says, '^ Ye need not that 
any man teach you, for ye have the anointing and ye 
know all things.'' The early fathers did not have this 
error to contend with, for it was not taught in the 
Apostolic Church, but I will give a single extract 
from Tertullian, the Solomon of the fathers who 
wrote 200 A. D. Speaking of the resurrection, he 
says, '^ How absurd, and in truth, how unjust, and in 
both respects, how unworthy of God for one sub- 
stance to do the work and another to reap the reward; 
that this flesh of ours should be torn by martyrdom 
and another wear the crown; or, on the other hand, 
that this flesh of our should wallow in uncleanness 
and another receive the condemnation! Is it not bet- 
ter to renounce all faith at once, in the hope of the 
resurrection, than to trifle with the w^isdom and jus- 
tice of God." This was not written against any 
Christians, as none at that date accepted the doctrine, 
but a semi-heathen sect called Valentimans, after 
their founder, Valentine, who created thirty gods. 

If you will bear with me a little I will make these 
mysteries so plain that the blind can see if they will, 
but do not expect it all in a single sermon, for to 
bring one from a dungeon to the glare of the noon- 
day sun, the light would blind. So with spiritual 
truth. I know I am saping the foundation of the 
modern church, but the quicker the sandy foundation 
is removed the better, so we can plant it on the rock. 
So let us first remove the rubbisth that modern theol- 
ogians have built on so we can get down to the cor- 
ner stone. The Mcaen Council, held 325 A. D., made 



42 



two mistakes. First, by their creed that told what 
part of Christ's teachings they should accept instead 
of all. Second, the greater one, by teaching the part 
they must reject, which was the most yital, and re- 
moyed it from the rock to imputed righteousness. 

I will now close with Peter's benediction: '' The 
God of all grace, who has called us unto his eternal 
glory b}' Jesus Christ, after that ye haye suffered a 
while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen and 
settle you." Amen. 



FIFTH STEP. 



THINK.— Think On These Things— Phil. 4: 8. 



In dividing the text we will first consider the first 
word. Have you ever thought that if people would 
only stop and consider we would have a very much 
better world. The sinner would withhold his hand 
if he would think that his acts were seen by a terrible 
and revengeful God, who said to Ephraim, " They 
consider not in their hearts that I remember all their 
Avickedness. They are all before my face.'' The 
Psalmist says, '^ Now consider this thou that forget 
God, lest I tare you in pieces and there be none to 
deliver. Compare the few days of this miserable life 
with the never ending eternity. Will the deceitful 
promises of sinful pleasure compensate for an etern- 
ity doomed to never-ending anguish and despair? 
Before it is too late think on these things.'' Tliey 
are not the onl^^ class that needs to think, but the 
religious professors as well, from the lowest sub- 
ject to the highest, Protestant officials as well as he 
that graces the Papel chair. 

Was it not the want of thought that has divided 
the holy church planted by Christ and the Apostles 
into a thousand shreds? Are we not more ready to 
imbibe the thoughts of others than to think for our- 
selves? The convert makes no pretentions to know 
what he believes until he decides which church he 
will unite with, and then he will go to the minister 
to ascertain what he believes, and what he tells him 
swallows like the swine does his food and then goes 
to sleep until the time for the next rations. The 



44 

Apostle Barnabus says in Ms epistle that those who 
meditated were typified in the clean beasts that 
raised and r-uminated the cud after they had eaten, 
while those that did not, like the unclean. Has not 
the creed, the cathecism, the class-book and the 
prayer-book more influence on the minds of the re- 
ligious w^orld to-day than the Bible? I met a chris- 
tian worker who held the unscriptural belief that 
the Holy Spirit was a woman. I tried to convince 
her of her error. She said she would believe it if 
a thousand persons said it was not so. I asked her 
if the spirit revealed it to her. She said, no, but her 
minister did, and what he said she would believe if 
a thousand denied it. You may think her case 
peculiar, but it is not, for I know of errors just as un- 
scriptural held by large denominations, and no 
amount of reasoning will convince them of their 
error. 

I will mention one wTiich is held by half of the 
Christian world and is found in the so called Apos- 
tle's Creed, which says Christ suffered under Pontius 
Pilate, was buried, descended into hell. Of course 
there is much of the creed that all Christians can 
accept, but we have no right to call it the Apostles^ 
unless we have proof that they wrote it. There 
is no mention of it in the Bible. I have carefully 
gone over the over 5,000 pages of the fathers of the 
church of the first three centuries, and find they 
c|uote from every chapter and nearly every verse of 
the new testament, besides from four other books 
that were then in the new testament, but has been 
thrown out, and find in them no mention of such 
creed, nor any mention of Christ's descent into hell, 
which part of the creed I T^dsh to consider, unless I 
consider an aprocryphal book called the descent into 
hell, by Xicodemus, of which there is three versions, 
of which no two agree, and no mention is made of 
it until the 13th centurv. The storv is as wild and 



45 



as unscriptural as Jules Verne's journey to the moon. 
Oliambers' Encyclopedia says the earliest account 
we have of its origin is from Euflnus, a historian 
compiler of the fourth century. No great weight 
belongs to his testimony, for he is no historical aa- 
thority. There were in the early church different 
forms of the creed. '' He descended into hell, and 
communion of saints/' is supposed to have been in- 
terpolated according to later notions. 

The earliest creed of which there is positive proof 
is the Nicene creed, which was made at that council 
325 A. D. This Gibbon tells us was the beginning 
of creed making, but not the beginning of the end, 
for all would not aiccept it, and so other councils met 
and made others, so in a short time there was not 
less than eleven different creeds, and since then that 
number has been multiplied many times. 

While the creed has been repeated in thousands 
of churches every Sunday for nearly a thousand 
years, I never heard a minister make any remarks 
about the descent into hell, nor read anything from 
theologian's on the subject, but Martin Luther, and 
he said he could not understand what Christ went 
to hell for unless it was to commence to chain the 
devil, as if it would take two thousand years to ac- 
complish the job and the angel was not able to do it 
alone. We read in Eev. 12 : 10, that the devil is be- 
fore the throne of God accusing the saints day and 
night, but immediately after the first resurrection, 
which is still future, he and his angels will be cast 
down to the earth, which is not hell (though many 
have tried to turn it into one), where he will remain 
three years and a half, after w^hich he will be chained 
and cast into the abyss, where he will remain a thous- 
and years, and that is not hell. So if Christ went to 
hell to chain him He did not find him there. Did He 
go to preach to the angels that sinned? Judge says, 
'' And the angels that kept not their first estate but 



46 

left their own liabitation, lie hath left in everla sting- 
chains under darkness nnto the judgment of the great 
day.'' 80 they are not in hell, neither are the wicked 
dead, for thej are in their graves and will not be 
raised until the end of the thousand years, as we read 
in Eev. 20: 5. If neither the devil nor his angels nor 
the wicked dead are in hell, who did Christ go down 
to bind or preach to? Again, all ^ill agree that hell 
will be a place of punishment for condemned sinners, 
and they will not be tried and judged until the day 
of judgment, which is still future. What would you 
think of a court that would hang a man accused of 
murder and have his trial after, to see if he is o-niltv, 
or even send him to State j)rison? Would you not 
call such a judge unjust and unworthy to hold his 
office? Is God more unjust than man? I ask the 
Christian world what Christ went to hell for? 

Once more. If [ should sav there is no hell I would 
have all the theologians upon me. I believe that the 
wicked shall be cast into hell with all the nations 
that foroet God. but thev Tvill not be until thev are 
judged, and then there will be time enough to pre- 
pare a place for them. What a fearful waste of 
brimstone it would be to keej) hellfire going for 
7,000 years when there was no one to be benefited 
h^ it. Would He. who would gather up the frag- 
ments that nothing be lost, be responsible for such 
a loss. We have a record of what was created each 
day of creation, but no mention of such a place. 
Christ said to his disciples, '' I go to prepare a place 
lor you." which place will be needed 1.000 years be- 
fore the former. God said, '' Behold, I make all 
things new." So according to his word he will have 
to make hell over again before he has use for it, if 
he made it before. Finally. Eev. 14. in speaking of 
them that have part in the first resurrection says 
they a^e they that follow the lamb wheresoever he 
a'oeth. If thev send Christ to hell everv week I do 



47 



not see how they can follow Him everywhere^ unless 
they go there themselves, and it is plain that there 
is no escape for them that once get to hell, for Jacob's 
ladder went from earth to heaven, but did not des- 
cend to hell, so they cannot escape on that. I have 
known some hardened sinners profane enough to 
send their 'horses and cattle to hell, but I never knew 
one so irreligious as to send the Saviour of the world 
to hell. 

The descent into hell is a popeish dogma that 
cannot be traced beyond the darkness of the medieval 
ages, and those Protestant churches that broke the 
Papal yoke brought this relic of the abyss with its 
fumes of purgatory with them, and have clung to it 
T^'ithout stopijing to think of its inconsistency. Is it 
not strange that there has not been a thinking man 
in the church for a thousand years? Think on these 
things. But, say you, we live in a thinking age, the 
world has made more advancement in enlightenment, 
civilization and useful discoveries during the present 
century than it has for fives or tens of centuries pre- 
vious. Oertainly. The time had come to fulfill Dan- 
iel's prop'hecy of the closing events of the age, that 
knowledge should be increased, and God raised up 
the men and endowed them with the ability to ac- 
complish it. Four words from one who had made 
the greatest achievement tells the story of the cen- 
tury. They were: ^' What hath God wrought?" 

I have no confidence in man's ability if left to him- 
self. He would soon work his ruin and become a 
vagabond and a fugitive on the earth. Measure to 
me the religious pulse of a nation and I will give the 
extent of its inventive ability. Without the inspira- 
tion of the Holy Spirit our thoughts are vain; but 
through Him we can do all things. So we should 
ever seek the spirit to direct our thoughts. If we 
do not the devil, who is an imitator of God in all 
things, will direct our thoughts to his advantage. 



48 

There is no doubt in my mind but what the Ooren, 
Book of Mormon, Age of Keason, and Christian 
Science, falsely so called, and many others I might 
name, are inspired from Satan. 

We will now consider God's purpose in creating 
man. Was it to have him for a servant? No. For 
Christ said, I call you not servants but friends. 
Again I will compel you to sit down and will gird 
myself and serve you. We will next consider what 
kind of a friend and companion God made. The 
Word says, '' The heart is deceitful above all things 
and despairably wicked, who can know it!" Paul 
says, '' The carnal mind is not subject to the law of 
God, neither, indeed, can be so, then they that are in 
the flesh cannot please God." After his wonderful 
conversion and receiving the Holy Spirit and preach- 
ing the Kingdom over 20 years, we find him saying, 
' What I would, do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 
I find then a law that when I would do good evil is 
present with me." Did God make such a blunder in 
creating man to be his friend that he turned out an 
enemy that could not do his pleasure nor keep his 
law even if he wanted to? So he exclaims, " O, 
wretched man that I am! " After the human family 
had multiplied the earth was filled with violence, so 
it was necessary to select the best family and destroy 
the rest, but Noah went on a spree about as soon as 
he landed. Then God tried Abraham, but did not 
succeed much better. Then he sent his only son to 
teach men how to live, but they reversed the order 
and showed Him how to die and laid him in a grave, 
but not content with that, even to this present mo- 
ment, send him to the lowest hell with a voice as 
free as they repeat the Lord's prayer. 

The question for us to consider is, did God create 
man with such a rebellious nature and evil heart, or 
was it the result of the fall? All mil agree it was 
the latter. Very well, then the effect of Adam's 



49 



sin must have been such as to entirely reverse his 
nature and that of his descendants, for which God 
hid his face from the whole human race, and if God 
changes not, as he says, man's nature has got to be 
changed back before he can behold the face of his 
Maker. Luther says that God has been reconciled 
to look upon Adam's sin with impunity, and men 
guilty of it can return to paradise with the crime for 
which Adam was expelled. Make God's word true 
if every man is a liar. When our nature is changed 
back we will become children of the most Hig^h, and 
it will be as impossible for us to sin as it is now to 
refrain from sin, for John says, '' Whatsoever is born 
of God cannot commit sin; for his seed remaineth in 
him and he cannot sin because he is born of God." 
Why? Because if we have God's nature we cannot 
sin more than He can. Then there is but two things 
for us to think out. First, what Tv^as Adam's sin that 
so entirely changed our nature? Second, what can 
we do or has been done to change our nature back? 
1 will leave you for the present to solve these two 
great problems. I will make some suggestions. Will 
water baptism and the Lord's supper do it? No. It 
did not so effect Paul; and some of the worst men 
that I have known have received both, and some of 
the best neither. So it seems if we receive them we 
are not the better, or reject them are we the worse. 
1 am not opposed to them, but cannot explain all in 
one brief sermon. If we receive no benefit they must 
have been given for a sign, and we ought to know 
what they typify. Did Christ's hanging on the cross 
change our nature? No. We are tempted as much 
as men were before. The cross is full of meaning but 
the present church gets no benefit because they do 
not understand it. Dr. Paine, of Bethel, said Christ's 
life was a perfect model and if we followed it we 
would be saved. I told him he was right. He said 
we gained nothing by his death. I told Mm we were 



50 

saved by His life but became kings by the cross if 
we took it up, yet we gain nothing by Christ's suffer- 
ing, for it is contrary to all law, both moral and 
physical, for one person to be benefited by the suf- 
ferings of another. Tertulien, the Solomon of the 
early fathers, says, " How absurd, and in truth, how 
unjust, and in both respects, how unworthy of God, 
for one substance to do the work and another reap 
the reward, that this flesh of ours should suffer by 
martyrdom and another wear the crown; or, on the 
other hand, that this flesh of ours should wallow in 
uncleanness and another receiye the condemnation. 
Is it not better to renounce all faith in the resur- 
rection than to trifle with the wisdom and justice 
of God.'' 

When I was a student, part of my work was to 
solve arithmetical problems. After working one 
that filled the slate, I found I did not get the answer 
given in the book, and after going over it again 
failed to find any error, and concluded the answer in 
the book was wrong. Many theologians work the 
problem of salvation in the same way, and instead of 
conforming their faith to the simple word, they try 
to twist the text to conform to their views. Among 
this innumerable hos(t is Alvah Hovey, D. D., L. L. D., 
the great Baptist commentator, who refuses to ac- 
cept these plain and simple words of Christ literally, 
'' When the gospel of the kingdom has been preached 
to all nations, then will the end come," because it 
upsets his postmillenium theory that had not a word 
of scripture to back it. He may be excusable for he 
does not know what the gospel of the Kingdom is, 
as he never hinted at it, and does not know the dif- 
ference between being saved under the law, which 
is as far as the modern churches get, which means 
to be a subject under Christ and his brethren and 
dwell on the earth separated from Christ during the 
millenium, and exposed to another temptation when 



51 



Satan will be loosened at the end of the millenium; 
while to inherit the kingdom means to reign with 
Christ in the heavenly Jerusalem for ever, as was 
taught during the first three centuries of the Chris- 
tian era. 

When I went back to my arithmetic I found I had 
made a mistake in copying the example, and there 
was no other way than to rub my work all out and 
begin again; and the churches will never find the 
kingdom until they rub out and begin again, as they 
begun wrong, and produce subjects instead of kings, 
or bastards instead of sons. See Hebrews, 12: 8. 

Many have tried to reconcile science with religion, 
but they have utterl,y failed to show how we are 
punishable for Adam's sin, committed 6,000 years 
ago, when we read that the son shall not suffer for 
the sin of the parent; nor show how by the death of 
one all died, nor how hj the death of another all 
could be made alive; nor how by punishing the good 
boy (Christ), we, the bad boy, could be made good. 
We have an illustration in history. By the death of 
his great-grandfather, Louis 15th became king of 
France at the age of 5 years, and how to'educate the 
young king was a very serious question, as he refused 
to obey his governess, as he thought kings were born 
to govern and not to be governed, and he did not take 
kindly to books, and to lay violent hands on the per- 
son of the king w^as an act of high treason, punishable 
with death, so she tried to punish him by proxy. So 
she called in John, a poor boy, to be his companion 
and schoolmate, and when the king refused to study 
or broke the rules, she punished John, but it does 
not seem to have had any better effect than Christ's 
sufferings has on us, for Louis 15th was one of the 
most immoral and worst rulers that ever disgraced 
the French throne. The pulpits of to-day, I see, 
while they pretend to herald the prince of peace, are 
clamoring for the blood of the poor benighted Fill- 



52 



pinos. Write this down in your table of laws: 
'' No true follower of the Prince of Peace can on any 
pretex imbue bis band in tbe blood of bis fellow 
man." 

Tbe autbor of tbe laws of s'cience, justice and 
equity is also tbe autbor of tbe laws of religion, and 
tbey will harmonize if we rightly interpret them, and 
if you follow me in a few sermons I will prove how 
it can be done without deTiating from the plain 
literal teachings of the Bible. Finally brethren, 
whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are 
honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things 
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
things are of good report; if there be any virtue and 
if there be any praise. 

Think on these things. 



SIXTH STEP. 



Final Perseverance of the Saints and Bible Twisting, 



" Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, 
for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin be- 
cause he is born of God;" I John, 3: 9. 

Methodist Lesson papers were used in a Baptist 
Sunday School, and the minister got hold of one on 
which there was the following: Q. Can a fully justi- 
fied and sanctified believer be lost? A. Yes; for 
Paul said : " So fight I to keep my body under, lest 
while I am preaching to others I myself become a 
castaway.'' The minister made this the subject of 
a sermon, as the Baptist as well as the Presbyterians 
hold the doctrine of " final perseverence," or that a 
person once converted cannot be lost; whil^ the 
Methodists hold the opposite. 

He said, after repeating the question and answer, 
that it was a very dangerous error; but failed to state 
wherein the dauger lay. For if I am converted and 
cannot be lost I fail to see hoAV I can be lost if I 
wrongly think I can, and that thought would stimu- 
late to watchfulness and service, for there must be 
some little reward for that. I heard another Baptist 
minister say in a sermon that ^' some held the doc- 
trine of final perseverance and they persevered in 
their laziness." I know of no doctrine so promotive 
of laziness, and if I knew the doctrine to be true I 
would spend no time or money on a person that was 
converted; for when I go fishing I never spend any 
time to catch them that are in the basket, neither 
would T spend any time to earn the money that I had 



54 

earned and put in the bank, if I had any there. But 
if the doctrine is wrong then they do a person a great 
wrong by making them believe they cannot be lost 
when they can, for it makes them rely on an old ex- 
perience, instead of the daily witness of the spirit 
that they are the children of God, and makes them 
careless and opens the door to let the adversary in; 
and I fail to find a single text of scripture to support 
the doctrine, while those that teach the opposite 
are too numerous to quote. I will give one, Ezekiel 
18; 20, '^ The soul that sinneth it shall die," and ap- 
plies equally to the most hardened wretch that ever 
trod God's footstool as it does to Michael the Arch- 
angel or to the Son of God himself. The least sin un- 
repented of will bar us from Christ's presence forever. 
Again, in the 26th verse, '' When a righteous man 
turneth away from his righteousness and committeth 
iniquity and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he 
hath done shall he die." Yet ye say the way of the 
Lord is not equal. They say this applies to them 
who were under the law and not to us. If it does not 
apply to us then the ways of God would not be equal, 
for if a man who has the gift of the Holy Ghost to 
teach him and keep him from sinning and turn his 
back on his former rio'hteousness, whv should he have 
any advantage over them who fell from less light and 
privileges. The doctrine is not only not taught in 
the Bible, but I hove examined the christian litera- 
ture of the first three centuries and failed to find it 
hinted at by any christian writer previous to John 
Calvin, who appears to be its discoverer and promo- 
ter, and strange (o sav nearlv half of Christendom is 
following his unscriptural views. The trouble is 
people do not think for themselves, but adopt the 
thoughts of others. Our preachers have got their 
theologv from their peculiar religious schools, where 
thev did not go to learn what the Bible savs, but to 
twist it to fit the faith or want of faith of their 



55 



church, which was founded on the opinion of some 
man who lived and died generations ago; and with- 
out giving the Holy Spirit a ghost of a chance to take 
any part in the teaching. If some preachers would 
cut from their Bible all that they are not willing to 
accept and teach literally, they would hardly have 
enough left to make a respectable pamphlet. I will 
now show you how that minister twisted himself 
around that text, or rather the text to fit his sec- 
tarian views. He said Paul was not afraid of being 
lost as he knew he could not be, for castaway did not 
mean lost, but only that God would remove him from 
the work and translate him to glory; and illustrated 
it with an old Roman gold coin, which when worn so 
it became light weight it was withdrawn from circu- 
lation and returned to the mint to be melted and 
made into a bright new coin; and that was what Paul 
was afraid would happen to him if he did not fight 
against the evil nature of his body. Does he pretend 
to say that any one can give way to the natural de- 
sire of the fiesh without running any risk? If so let 
us eat and drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die. 
I fail to understand why Paul fought to prevent that 
which he so much desired; for he said, ^' To die is 
gain;" and again, ''I desire to depart and be with 
Christ, which is far better." But a strange part of 
it is that castaway means saved, or translated into 
glory. O, Webster, how could you have made such 
a mistake, for if it does, then saved means lost, and 
the kings English is out of joint. If castaway means 
saved, then poor Paul was surely lost, for he says in 
1 Cor., II: 1: He did not cast him away. 

A strange part of this sermon was that there were 
three Baptist x^reachers to hear it, all of which were 
loud in their praise of it and could hardly keep their 
seats until he was through. Which proves that the 
more a man twists the Bible to fit the views of his 
church the more he will he honored. I do not give 



56 



the minister the honor of being original in so wrest- 
ing God'S Word, for I had heard the same arguments 
before. Neither do I think that he believed that he 
gave the true meaning, but it was Baptist theology 
and he must preach it to please his people. He told 
me that there was a i^lace high up the spiritual lad- 
der from which it t\ as impossible to fall, but he made 
no mention of it in his sermon. We will see if we 
can find it. 

FINAL PERSEYEEENCE PROVED. 

I have shown that the Calvinists are wrong in their 
theory of perseverence. I will also prove that the 
Wesleyans are more so. A shoemaker is one who 
makes shoes, and he is a shoemaker as long as he 
makes shoes, but when he ceases to make shoes he 
is no longer a shoemaker in fact, but he may be so 
by trade, for to know how to do a thing does not 
make one a doer of it. 

We will apply this to the sinner, for as long as he 
sins he is a sinner, and I do not care if he belongs to 
a dozen churches ?nd spends half of his time in pray- 
er, and rex>ents every time he sins, as long as he sins 
]ie is fi sinner. But when he ceases from sinning he 
ceases to be a sinner and becomes a saint. I find 
that people w^ho profess to be christians do not like to 
be called sinners, but I have to call things by their 
right names, and Webster will bare me out in it; 
and I then put sinners in two classes, the unrepentent 
who delights to do evil and do it with both hands and 
make it their boast; and the penitent who do it under 
uncontrollable temptation and afterwards are sorry 
for it and ashamed of it. 

I will now go back to my text, " He who is born 
of God cannot commit sin." It is clear that if a 
s.'ived man gets where he cannot sin he gets where 
be carinot be lost. So I have proved the Wesleyans 



57 

T^rono- ii saying that he can. Hark! I hear you all 
say, '^ I do not believe that, for I know that I can sin, 
and like Paul have to fight to keep my body under. 
Do you think we can get ahead of the Apostle Paul! 
1 would like to see a man that could not sin; he must 
be an idiot.-' Not quite so fast; if your experience 
differs from the Bible, which is true? Let God be 
true though every man is a liar. I do not doubt that 
you can sin, and if you can you do and you are a sin- 
ner and not a saint; and I think it would trouble me 
now to find a saint, because all are teaching for doc- 
trines the commandments of men, and the Holy 
Spirit the sanctifier has been lost sight of. Can God 
sin or Christ? Certainly not. When we get his na- 
ture and become one with Him and have His mind, 
how can we more than He? Sin is the fruits of 
temptation which we received from the evil one, and 
When vve get where we cannot be tempted we will be 
free from sin. A parallel passage with the text is 
found in I John, 5, 18: '' Whosoever is born of God 
sinneth not; but he that Is begotten of God keepeth 
himself and the wicked one touches him not." This 
is the new birth of which Christ talked to Nico- 
demus, and over Avhich the church stumbles by say- 
ing that it means conversion, when it means full 
sanctification, of which the nature of the receiver is 
entirely changed. 

When Paul w^rote Komans, 1 Corinthians and Phil- 
lippians, he had not yet obtained this experience, as 
he plainly tells us in Eom. 7 and 8 that he is sinning 
and doing the things that he hates; and in Phillip- 
pians 3, 10 to 13, he tells us that he has not suffered, 
b}^ which he expects perfection. So you see the Cal- 
vanists error by trying to make apply the experience 
of a saint, for while Paul sinned he was a sinner and 
the Wesleyans try to prove by the experience of a sin- 
ner that a saint could be lost. But in Col. 1: 24, he 
has come to another experience:. He says: ''Who 



68 



now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up that 
which is behind, of the afflictions of Christ in my 
flesh for his body sake." That suffering, he says, 
was the mystery 1 hat had been hid with God from all 
generations; but this will be more fully explained 
in another sermon. 

A CHALLENGE TO THE CHEISTIAN WORLD. 

I am i^repared ro prove: 1st. That Christ came to 
teach men hj what service they could obtain His 
kingdom and become joint heirs with Him in ruling 
it, or copartners in its government. 

2d. That this mystery of Christ's kingdom was 
taught in the church from the apostolic age until the 
opening of the third century. 

3d. That by the decree of the Cannal of Nicae, 325 
years after Christ, all ministers holding the mystery 
of the kingdom were refused ordination in the church 
and churches of all sects; both Protestant and Catho- 
lic have adhered to it since, and the teachings of the 
' churches have failed to bring a single man into the 
Kingdom or Sonship of God since, except only John 
Bunyan in his '' Holy War,'' and a secret christian 
organization that I know but a title about in Russia, 
but have been banished. 

CONDITIONS. 

I will prove it in public debate, with some limita- 
tion, with any number of men, not exceeding ten, of 
any one or different churches, either Protestant or 
Catholic, who will answer any question that I ask to 
the best of their abilitv, and allow me one-half of the 
time, and no speaker is to occupy more than 25 min- 
utes at a time. To be decided by a jury of not less 
than 3 or more than 12 men, who are to be men of 
honor and intelligence, and who are not members of 
any church, but believe the Bible and respect re- 



59 

ligion; men of the legal profession preferred. Dis- 
puted njeaning of words decided by Webster's Dic- 
tionary and Smith's Bible Dictionary. 

A DEEAM. 

I will now close with a dream that I had three 
nights ago and its interpretation. I thought the 
moon had fallen to the earth near where I was. I 
examined it and found that it had been so much de- 
cayed by age that it brilliancy had departed and was 
corroded so much that it was impossible to repair 
it; so I made a new one, when an intelligent school 
teacher came along on her way to school and admired 
my new moon very much and desired me to show it 
to her pupils, which I did, and then sent it about its 
business. I last saw it in the sky when it looked like 
a new moon when we first see it^ but was clear and 



bright. 



INTEEPKETATION. 



As the moon gets its light from the sun and lights 
the earth at night, so the truth comes from God and 
enlightens the benighted world through the church. 
As the moon became old and decayed, so the truth 
delivered by Chris l and the Apostles has been set 
aside and the churches are teaching for doctrine com- 
mandments of men. As it was impossible to repair 
the decayed moon, so it is impossible to get the 1,000 
different churches to lay aside their multitude of 
creeds and come back to the teachings of Christ, for 
I have been trying it for four years and now see that 
the only way is to reflect the same light upon the 
world that the old moon did in its youth, that was 
Christ ;uid the early church. The teacher represents 
the faithful minister who is glad to receive the whole 
trttth and have it tatight to his pupils or members. 
As the new moon does not give much light, so I have 
not been able to get the mystery of the Kingdom be- 



60 



fore much of the world. As the moon will grow un- 
til a full moon lights the whole night, so will the 
truth that God ordained uie to teach fill the earth. 
As the mellow light of the full moon fades away be- 
fore the gloAYing light of the morning sun, even so 
will the light of my moon be swallowed up in the 
glorious brilliancy of the dawning of the day of the 
Son of Kighteousness. Eyen so Lord may it be. 
Amen. 



SEVENTH STEP. 



The Kingdom of God — Thy Kingdom Come. — Mat. 6, 10. 



No Gospel truth is so important as the Kingdom of 
God; vQt no truth is less understood. In the Lord's 
Prayer it was the first subject in the petition, being 
before even our daily bread or the forgiveness of our 
sins; yet if you asked the Doctors of Divinity of this 
country what it was and how it was to be obtained, 
you would get a multitude of answers, none of which 
would be correct. I attended last August, at Corn- 
wall, a conference of the Brotherhood of the King- 
dom (so called) and obtained a lot of literature on 
the subject, none of which would direct the student 
hardly one step on the way to possess it. Yet many 
important truths were dropped there. One of the 
best was from Archdeacon Wood, D. D., in his valua- 
ble paper he said the Tree of Suffering is the tree of 
life; but did not tell us how we could obtain it by 
suffering. 

What is the Kingdom of God? 

In answering this question it is necessary to ex- 
plain what a kingdom is. It is a people governed by 
a king, and may be either absolute as to have the 
governing power vested in one person, who's word 
is law; or it may be limited in which otJhers are asso- 
ciated with the king, each of which have a power to 
assist in the governing power. The Kingdom of God 
or Christ, which means the same, will be like the lat- 
ter; for in Kev. 3, 22: " To him that overcometh will 
I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I over- 
come and am set down with my Father in His 



62 



throne.-' These shall reign with Christ a thousand 
years, as we read in Eevelation 2: 4, as that is the 
extent of Christ's reign on earth. 

To describe the glory of this would be simply to 
describe the indescribable; language is inadequate. 
Could Tou find lanoaiaoe to describe the beautT of the 
rose or lilv to one that has never seen the lio'ht. what 
can I use to compare it with when beginnings of its 
equal is not on earth? Under the law it was said: 
" Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it en- 
tered into the heart of man the things that God hath 
prepared for them that love Him. Paul quotes this 
and adds in contrast in I Cor. 2: "' But God hath re- 
vealed them to us by his spirit, for the spirit searches 
all things, yea the deep things of God." But any one 
who will seek it can, while on earth, realize its glory 
and beautv, which is verv far ahead of the siorv of 
Solomon's. Some teach that all who are saved will 
reign ^\uth Christ, but fail to tell who they will reign 
over; as a kingdom without subjects would not be 
worth possessing and would be like Alexander Sel- 
kirk's, who was wrecked on an uninhabited island. 
The poet makes him say: 

I am monarch of all I survey; 

To my right there is none to dispute; 
From the center all round to the sea, 
I'm the Lord of the foul and the brute. 
His glory is described as follows: 

O Solitude where is the charms \ 

That sages have seen in thy face; 
Better dwell in the midst of alarm. 

Than to range in this horrible place. 
Society, friendship and love, 

Devinety bestowed upon man; 
O, had I the wings of a dove. 

How soon would I taste you again. 



63 

The term children of the kingdom refers to those 
who will reign, and not to the subjects; so who are 
they? Some say they are the lost sinners who in- 
habit through eternity that warm climate, which I 
think few would care to inhabit, even to be its ruler. 
Besides his impship might object to deviding his 
kingdom. Rev. 20 : 5, says : " The rest (wicked dead) 
lived not again until the thousand years were flush- 
ed.'' Others say their rule is to arrange the punish- 
ment of the sinners who sleep in their grave while 
God the judge has reserved the judgment to himself. 

When Adam was created God could not give him a 
kingdom, for there were no subjects; so he done the 
best he could and gave the same kind that Alexander 
Selkirk had dominion over, the fowl and the brute; 
and if he had not transgressed Christ would not have 
had a kingdom. But God never made a mistake and 
knew what he, as well as the serpent, would do when 
He created them, and if he had known the mystery 
of God, he could have got back in Paradise, or God's 
dwelling place, w^hich means the same as the king- 
dom, but God purposely hid the way to repair the 
broken law for 4,000 years, so that Christ might re- 
veal it when he came and have subjects as well as 
kings. For that reason he gave them the law of 
burnt offerings and priestly service so that those that 
obeyed it might dwell upon the earth and be subjects 
and go back to the law of sacrifices during the time 
that Christ and his 144,000 kings should reign over 
them in the Golden City, the New Jerusalem that 
shall come down to the renewed earth which the sub- 
jects will not be permitted to enter, as described in 
Revelations 21. John says: ^^ I saw a new heaven 
and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first 
earth were passed away and there was no more sea. 
And I, John, saw the holy city. New Jerusalem, com- 
ing down from God out of heaven prepared as a 
bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great 



M 

voice out of heaven saying, ^ Behold the tabernacle 
of God is with men and He will dwell with them and 
they shall be His and God Himself shall be with 
them and be their God.' '' Those who received the 
mystery while it was preached will raise in the first 
resurrection, which will take place as soon as enough 
more receive the seal after it is preached or publish- 
ed to the world to complete the 144,000; and with 
then! now living who accept the truth will be caught 
up to meet the Lord in the air, and so be forever with 
the Lord as explained in Thessalonians 4: 18. This 
will take place three and one-half years before the 
end of the age. During that time there will be the 
great tribulation, which will last to the end, when 
the world will be burned with so great^heat that the 
rocks and stones will be reduced to the finest dust 
and the sea will be dried and the mountains will be 
cast in it and the world will become a vast plain; and 
all of the righteous dead who have lived since Adam 
will be raised and dwell upon it and Christ and his 
kings shall reign over them; and the christians who 
have lived since the mystery was wrested from the 
church will be among the subjects. Satan will be 
chained during the thousand years and the people 
will come once a year to the earthly Jerusalem to 
offer their sacrifices, but not in the heavenly, which 
Paul says is free while the earthly is in bondage with 
her children. Gal. 4: 25-26. 

The truths of the kingdom few will accept when 
they hear it, for they will be wedded to their 
churches and will try to believe that they are right, 
but when the 144,000, as described in Rev. 14: 1-6, 
are caught up, will abandon their churches and come 
to the Apostolic. But it will be too late to be crown- 
ed, but will dwell in the holy city and be servants 
and serve Christ and his brethren day and night. 
Rev. 7: 14-16. They will be a number that no man 
can number coming from every nation, while the 



65 



144,000 will come from tlie eleven tribes of Israel, for 
Dan is excluded for the Antechrist will come from 
his tribe. 

When will the kingdom come is the next question. 
It will come just 6,000 years after creation, for as 
God was 6 days creating all things, and a thousand 
years is as one day, and the seventh day was the 
Sabbath. So the seventh thousand vears will be the 
millenial Sabbath. This was the unanimous opinion 
of the early church. I will give an extract from the 
15th chapter of the Epistle of Barnabas: '' The Sab- 
bath is mentioned at the beginning of creation, thus 
the Lord made in six days the works of his hands and 
made an end on the seventh day, and rested on it and 
sanctified it." This implies that the Lord will finish 
all things in 6,000 years, for a day with 'Him is a 
thousand years. Therefore, my children, in six days, 
that is in six thousand years, all things will be fin- 
ished, and be rested on the seventh day. This means 
when His son cometh again He shall destroy the time 
of the wicked man and judge the ungodly and change 
the sun and the moon and the stars. Then shall He 
truely rest on the seventh day. Moreover, He says 
thou shall sanctify it with pure hands and a pure 
heart. If any one can sanctify the day which God 
has sanctified, except he is pure in heart and in all 
thing, we are deceived. One properly resting sancti- 
fies it when we have received the promise; wicked- 
ness no longer existing and all things having been 
made new by the Lord, shall be able to work right- 
eousness. Then we shall be able to sanctify it, hav- 
ing first been sanctified ourselves. Further He 
says your new moons and your Sabbaths I cannot en- 
dure. Ye perceive how He speaks; your present 
Sabbaths are not acceptable to me. When giving 
rest to all things I shall make a beginning of the 
eighth day. This is the beginning of another world. 
Therefore we keep the eighth day Avith joyfulness; 



66 



" the day also that Jesus raised from the dead." So 
we keep the eighth day, or the first da}^ of the second 
week, in honor of the beginning of God's eternal 
reign, which will be at the end of the millennium, 
when Christ shall return the government to the 
Father. We discover here the mistake that is made 
in calling the first day of the week the Sabbath, as 
that only applies to the day we call the seventh, or 
Saturda}^, and no where did the early church call it 
the Sabbath, for that means seventh. Some say the 
day was changed, but that is not so, for no one has 
any right to change any of God's ordinances. The 
Catholic church claims the honor, but are not any 
more entitled to it than they are of the honor of 
abolishing sacrifices; for God said in Isaiah 1: 11, 
'^ I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or lambs, or 
he goats,'' and in verse 13, '' Bring no more vain obla- 
tions; incense is an abomination unto Me; the new 
moons and Sabbaths, the callings of assemblies I 
cannot sway with; it is iniquity, even the solemn 
meetings." So the Sabbath was not changed but 
put away. The Jews were taught to hold it in honor 
of the millennium when they were taught that Christ 
would be their king and reign over them. But we 
are told we shall be equal to him and reign with him, 
so to worship the day would be a sort of self-worship. 
The first day is not a day of rest, but a day of good 
things; a day of rejoicing and of gift giving; not a 
day to make money, but a day of charity and giving 
of thanks. The fathers taught that we were not to 
kneel in prayer, but to pray standing with uplifted 
hands, and if we fasted on that dav we were guiltv 
of the body and blood of Christ. 

THE GKOWTH OF THE KINGDOM. 

Some think that the best thing before us is Christ's 
reign; but it is far behind what is to follow, God 



(57 

has planted in our hearts a desire and hope of some- 
thing better ahead, for He says: " Of the increase of 
His government there will be no end." The good is 
put aside to give place to the better, as the Sabbath 
was put away to give place for the Lord's day. 

SEEK THE BEST PLACE IN THE KINGDOM. 

There will be as many grades of honor in Christ's 
kingdom as there is grades of offices in this govern- 
ment, from the president down to the trustee of the 
district school. Paul says in I Cor. 15: 41: " There 
is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon, 
and another glory of the stars, for one star differeth 
from another star in glory. So also is the resurrec- 
tion of the dead." We find the best places in the 
kingdom are filled by the four beasts or living crea- 
tures, as in the revised version in Revelations 4, who 
are in the midst of and round about the throne. The 
first of these will be filled by Peter, who, as Tertulien 
tells us unbored the kingdom; and the next by John, 
who was first to enter in; and the other two will be 
filled by the first two who reopens the kingdom by 
discovering the mystery and publishing it. 

Twelve of the thrones of the twenty-four elders 
will be filled by twelve of the fourteen Apostles (as 
Paul and Barnabas were added), and the other 
twelve thrones will be filled by the first twelve who 
accepts the truth taught by the last two beasts, who 
will assist them in their great work of revealing to 
the world the Mystery of God. 

Covet earnestly the best places, for he who will be 
first to pay the price will get it. 

Tell me how far we are from the end of 6,000 year 
from creation and I will tell you how far we are froui 
the Lord's second advent. We are not wholely with- 
out chronological records, as we have what claims to 
be one in our reference Bibles which places creation 



68 



4,004 years before Christ, and we have 1899 on our 
calander since, making 5,903. The author of these 
dates was not inspired and might have made a mis- 
take. Let us see. Saul was anointed king 1095 
years before Christ, which appears to be correct (see 
margin 1 Samuel, 10). Now turn to Joshua 18, and 
w^e have the account of deviding the land and date 
1444. Divide and w^e have 349 years. Acts 13, 19, 
the inspired writer says : " He devided the land by 
lot .and after that he gave unto them judges about 
the space of 450." Here we see a mistake of 100 
years, which added makes the 6,000; but this is not 
exactly correct, as the end is not less than 7 years 
ahead, which I will explain later. 



EIGHTH STEP. 



Antechrist. 



^' I am come in my Father's name and ye receive 
me not; if another shall come in his own name him 
ve will receive.'' John 5: 43. 

God created all things in six days and made an 
end. Before he made man he made the angels. The 
number, John tells us, were equal to the children of 
men that should come into the world. It is a com- 
forting thought that we each have our angel as a 
body guard and servant. As men differ in strength, 
ability, influence and power, so do the angels, and 
each have their respective duties. 

The one first called the serpent He gave the earth 
as his dominion. Christ calls him the prince of this 
world, and he exhibits more power over its govern- 
ments than men give him credit for, as there is but 
two influences in the world, good and evil, and he is 
author of all the evil, as since his fall he has ex- 
erted all of his power to defeat God's plans and bring 
all men to a level with himself. He is omnipresent 
and has a host of fallen angels to aid him in his ef- 
forts, but often overreaches in his zeal, as he did at 
Christ's crucification. His personal presence is be- 
fore the throne now where he is ever accusing the 
saints to God, as we read in Revelations 12: 10, and 
Job 1: 6-12. In the former we read that the dragon 
or serpent called satan and the devil is cast out of 
heaven and his angels with him. This will take 
place three and a half years before the end of the age, 
when he will set up his kingdom upon the earth and 



70 

rule it through the great tribulation; for we read: 
" Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea, for 
the devil has come down to you having great wrath, 
because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." 

As Christ can put his spirit in men who are willing 
to receive it, so can satan, and his reign as antechrist 
will be through the body of some man who the world 
will see as a political ruler, and as men have loved to 
serve him in the past they will get their fill during: 
this season; but those who have excepted the truth 
and received the kingdom will escape, for they will 
be caught up alive about the time satan descends. 
Christ saw the vision of satan descending like light- 
ning and said : " Watch ye, therefore, and pray al- 
ways that ye may be accounted worthy to escape 
these things that shall come to pass and stand before 
the Son of Man," Luke 21: 26; and, "because thou 
hast kept the words of my patients I also will keep 
thee from the hour of temptation that shall come up- 
on all the world to try them that dwell on the earth," 
Rev. 3: 10. There has been much speculation as to 
who he will be, but it will not matter much as we 
know whose spirit he will have and he will be an 
Israelite of the tribe of Dan, and for that reason 
Dan was not among the 114,000 that were seated as 
recorded in the 7th of Eevelations, and in Geneses 4 . 
4-17: " Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder 
in the path that bitteth the horses heels so that his 
rider shall fall backward. Dan shall judge his peo- 
ple as one of the tribes of Israel." 

The early "Fathers" sustain this, as I will show 
by quotations from HipDolyters, Bishop of Partus, 
who lived and wrote in the second centurv: " Thus 
did the Scriptures teach beforetime of this lion and 
lion's whelp. And in like manner also was it writ- 
ten regarding Antechrist. Por Moses speaks thus: 
" Dan is a lion's whelp, and he shall lean from Bash- 
013." But that no one may err by supposing that this 



71 



is said of Christ, let him attend carrefully to the mat- 
ter. Dan he says is a lion's whelp, and in naming the 
tribe of Dan, and that the case stands thns; we see 
also from the words of Jacob: " Let Dan be a serpent, 
lying upon the gronnd, biting the horses heel." What 
then is meant by the serpent, but Antechrist, the de- 
ceiver, who deceived Eve and supplanted Adam. 
But since it is necessary to prove this assertion by 
sufficient testimony, we shall not shrink from the 
task. Out of the tribe of Dan then that tyrant and 
king, that dread judge, that son of the devil is des- 
tined to spring and arise; the prophet testifies when 
he says Dan shall judge his people as one tribe of 
Israel. But some one may say that this refers to 
Samson, who sprang from the tribe of Dan and judg- 
ed the people 20 years. Well, the prophecy had its 
partial fulfillment in Samson, but its complete fulfill- 
ment is T'^served for Antechrist; for Jeremiah also 
speaks of this effect. From Dan we are to hear the 
sound of the surging of his horses; the whole land 
trembled at the sound of the neighing of the driving 
of his horses. Another prophet says : " He shall 
gather all of his strength from the east, even to the 
west.'' The same Hippolytus says of him: "In his 
first step he will be gentle, loving, quiet, pious, 
pacific, hating iniquity, detesting gifts, not allowing 
idolatry, loving the scriptures, reverencing priests, 
honoring his elders, detesting adultery, giving no 
heed to slander, not admitting oaths, kind to stransc- 
ers and the poor, compassionate." And then he will 
work wonders, cleansing lepers, raising paralytics, 
expelling demons, raising the dead, helping widows, 
defending orphans, loving all, reconciling in love 
those who contend, and saying to such, let not the 
son go down on your wrath, and he will not require 
gold, nor love silver, nor seek riches. And all this 
will he do corruptly and deceitfull.y, and with the 
purpose of deluding all to make him king, for if it 



72 

were possible he would deceive the very elect. When 
they see such great power and virtue in him they 
will meet to make him king. Who will say : We will 
confide in thee, and acknowledge thee to be just 
upon the whole earth; we hope to be saved by three, 
and by thy mouth we have received just and incor- 
ruptable judgment. And at first that deceitful and 
lawless one will refuse such glorj^; but the men per- 
sisting and holding up him will declare him king. 
And therefore he will be lifted up in heart, and he 
w^ho was formerly gentle, will become violent, and 
he who persued love will become pitiless, and the 
humble in heart will become haughty and inhu- 
man, and the hater of unrighteousness will persecute 
the righteous. Then when he is elevated to his king- 
dom he will marshall war and in his wrath he will 
smite three mighty kings, and after that he will re- 
build the temple of Jerusalem and restore it speedily 
and give it over to the Jews. And then he will be 
lifted up in heart against every man; yea, he will 
speak blasphemy against God, thinking in his deceit 
that he will be king upon the earth forever, not know- 
ing (miserable wretch) that his kingdom is soon to 
be brought to naught and that he will quickly have to 
meet the fire prepared for him along with all who 
trust in him. For Daniel said: "I will make my 
covenant for one week." He indicated seven years, 
and the half of the week is for the preaching of the 
prophets, and the other half of the week, that is to 
say, three and a half years, Antechrist will reign up- 
on the earth, and after this his kingdom and glory 
will be taken away. 

Again he says, ^' The heavens will not give their 
dew, the clouds will not give the rain, the earth will 
refuse to 3d eld its fruit, the sea will be filled with 
stench, the rivers will be dried up, the fish of the 
sea shall die, men shall perish with hunger and 
thirst; the father embracing son, the mother em- 



73 



bracing daughter, will die together, and there will 
be none to bury them; for the whole earth will be 
filled w^ith the odor arising from their dead bodies; 
and the sea not receiving the flood of the rivers will 
become like mire and w^ill be filled with an unlimited 
stench. Then there will be a mighty pestilence upon 
the whole eart'h, and then, too, inconsolable lamen- 
tation and measureless weeping. Then men will 
deem them happy who are dead before them, and 
will say to them, '' open your sepulchers and take 
us miserable beings in; open your receptacles for the 
reception of your wretched kinsmen and acquaint- 
ances. Happy are ye in that ye have not seen our 
day. Happy are ye in that ye have not had to wit- 
ness this painful life of ours." Then that abominable 
one will send his command throughout every govern- 
ment, saying, '' A mighty king has risen upon the 
earth; come ye all and worship him; come and see 
the strength of his kingdom; for behold he will give 
you corn and he will bestow on you wine and great 
riches and lofty honors, for the whole earth and sea 
obey his command and by reason of the scarcity of 
food all will go to him and worship him. And he 
will put his mark on their right hand and upon their 
forehead, so that no one can put the honorable mark 
of the cross on their forehead by their right hand, 
but his hand is bound. When men have received his 
seal, and find neither food or water, they will re- 
pioach him with a voice of anguish, saying, give us 
to eat and drink, for we all faint with hunger and 
all manner of straits, and bid the heavens yield us 
water and drive off the beasts that devour us. Then 
will the crafty one answer, mocking them. The 
heavens refuse to give rain, the earth yields not again 
her fruit, whence then can I give you food? Then 
on hearing the words of this deceiver, these miser- 
able men will perceive that this is the wicked ac- 
cuser, and will mourn in anguish, and weep ve- 



74 

liementl}', and beat their face with their hands, and 
tear their hair, and lacerate their cheeks with their 
nails, while they say to each other: Woe for the 
calamity! Woe for the deceitful contract! Woe for 
the deceitful covenant! Woe for the mighty mis- 
chance! How have we been beguiled by the de- 
ceiver! How have we been joined to him! How 
have we been caught in his toils! How have we 
been taken in his abominable net! How have we 
heard the scriptures and understood them not! For 
truly those who are engrossed with the affairs of 
life and with the lusts of this world mil be easily 
brought over to the accuser then and sealed by him.'' 
I will now turn from this wonderful description 
given by Hippolytus, although I have not quoted 
half of his ^' discourse on the end of the w^orld and 
on Antechrist and on the second coming of our 
Lord.'' I first thought he was ^Tong by saying he 
would be burned after the three years and a half, 
but he referred to the son of Dan, who would so sell 
himself to the Devil; for he could not do it and be 
guiltless, for it would be better for him if he had 
never been born. As God dwells in his children, so 
the serpent, w^ho tries to imitate Grod in all things, 
dwells in his to add to their misery. So the Ante- 
christ is both the serpent and the son of him. While 
the latter goes to perdition, the former is to be chain- 
ed in the abyss for a thousand years, after which 
God has more use for him, for those who are subjects 
in Christ's kingdom are, after the millenium, to be 
subjected to another temptation and tribulation, un- 
der which most of those who were formerly saved 
will fall, as they are a camp compared to a multitude 
as numerous as the sands of the sea. See Kev. 20: 
7-10. But those who reign with Christ and receive 
His kingdom will not be subject to this second temp- 
tation, for they will be beyond satan's power and 
shall reign with Christ for ever and ever. 



75 

Do not think Hippolytus has overdrawn the picture 
of the great tribulation and Antechrlst, for he has 
not told the half. The Bible is filled with descrip- 
tions. Christ said if these days were not shortened 
no flesh could be saved. Paul said, 2 Thes. 2: 8-12, 
•' Then shall that wicked be revealed whom the Lord 
shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall 
destroy with the brightness of his coming: whose 
coming is after the working of Satan with all power 
and signs, and living wonders, and will all deceivable- 
ness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because 
they received not the love of the truth that they 
might be saved. And for this cause God shall send 
them strong delusions that they should believe a 
lie; that they all might be damned who believe not 
the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness." 
Daniel in latter part of chapters 8 and 11 describes 
him and tells of his wonderful power and says he will 
gain his kingdom by flattery. Also in Kevelations 
18: 11, he is described as a ^' beast coming up out 
of the earth and he had two horns like a lamb and 
he spake like a dragon, and he exercised all of the 
power of the first be'ast before him and caused the 
earth and them that d*well therein to worship the 
first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And 
he doth great w^onders so that he maketh fire come 
dowm from heaven on the earth in the sight of men 
and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the 
means of these miracles which he hath power to do 
in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell 
on the earth that they should make an image of 
the beast which had the wound by the sword and 
did live. And he had power to give life unto the 
image of the beast, that the image of the beast 
should speak and cause that as many as would not 
worship the image of the beast should be killed. 
And he called all both great and small, rich and 
poor, free and bound, to receive a mark in their right 



76 



hand, or in their forehead; and that no man might 
buy or sell saye he that had the mark or the name 
of the beast or the number of his name. Here is 
wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count 
the number of the beast, for it is the number of a 
man, and his number is six hundred threescore and 
six. 

Hippolytus says the numerical letters in 666 make 
the words '' I deny," and says, '' In the time of that 
hater of all good will be the seal, the tenor of which 
will be this: I deny the maker of heaven and earth; 
I deny the baptism; I deny my former service, and 
attach myself to thee and I believe in thee.'' In 
Isaiah 14: 12, '' How^ art thou fallen from heaven, O 
Lucifer, son of the morning; how art thou cut down 
to the ground, which did weaken the nations! for 
thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into 
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of 
God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congre- 
gation, in the side of the north; I will ascend above 
the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most 
High. Yet thou shalt be brought dowm to hell, to 
the shades of the pit. They that see thee shall nar- 
rowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying: Is 
this the man that m'ade the earth to tremble and 
did shake kingdoms; that made the world as a wilder- 
ness and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened 
not the house of his prisoners. All the kings of the 
nation, even also of them, be in glory everyone 
in his own house. But thou are cast out of thy 
grave like an abominable branch, and as the remnant 
of them that are slain, thrust through with a sword^ 
and go down to the stones of the pit as a carcas trod- 
den under foot. Thou shalt not be joined with them 
in burial because thou has destroyed thy land and 
slain thy people. The seed of evil doers shall never 
be renowned.'' 

Five years ago I attended the meetings of the great 



77 



Brooklyn revival, also some meetings at Simpson's 
Tabernacle, 690 Eight Evenue, New^ York, and at- 
tended one of Ms lectures to liis class of missionary 
students. He expounded (or pretended to) the eighth 
chapter of Daniel. He said he could not accept the 
doctrine of a personal Antechrist, for he believed 
the scriptures applied to him were fulfilled in the 
line of the Popes, and the 3^ years, and 42 months 
time, and half a time, and 1260 days, all of which 
mean the same time, or 3^ years, as the Kioman yea.r 
had but 360 days,or 12 months of 30 days each, and 
after the calendar got too far behind the sun three 
months were added to allow the calendar to catch up 
to the sun. I would like to ask him v^hich of the 
Popes exalted his throne above God's, or blasphemed 
God, or sat in the temple at Jerusalem, or caused 
an image to speak, or called down fire from heaven 
in the presence of men. I consider it very danger- 
ous doctrine to teach, for make a man believe there 
is no personal Antechrist and he will accept him as 
Christ when he comes, and accept his seal. I had a 
vision and was in Antechrist's kingdom, a day or 
so after this, and saw men who refused to accept 
him sent off to the slaughter, and them that did 
were dressed in uniform consisting of a cloak of gay 
colors and cape and turban cap, all of gay color and 
heavy fringe, and among those thus dresssed I saw 
one of Simpson's leading workers, who blindly fol- 
lowed him. 

As to who the Antechrist will be I do not pretend 
to say, but a passage in Kevelation points to a Bona- 
parte, for which says the eighth earthly ruler, which 
is Antechrist, will be of the seventh, which was 
Napoleon. Again the Greek numerical letters in 
Bonaparte 666. Prophetic scholars pointed to Je- 
rome, who died in 1891, but left two sons. After the 
Bonapartes were expelled from France, Jerome took 
the oath of allegiance to the French Kepublic, but 



78 



afterwards reconsidered it, not on his own account, 
but he had visions of empire for his son. Victor, one 
son, is an of&cer in the Russian army, and is very 
popular with the Czar. I read that he lately sent 
him a telegram hoping the time was not far distant 
when he would be reinstated on his throne, and that 
he had as many friends in France as there are in 
Russia. I recently read of a book published last 
winter and suppressed, that stated that the army 
was opposed to the goyernment and a majority de- 
sired to restore the monarchy. It will do to watch 
him. 



NINTH STEP. 



The Two Witnesses. 



And at that time shall Michael stand up, that great 
prince which standeth for the children of thy people : 
and there shall be a time of trouble such as never 
was since there was a nation, even to that same time: 
and at that time thy people shall be delivered every 
one that shall be found written in the book. Daniel 
12: 1. 

No men in the world's history are to fill as import- 
ant a position for good as the last great prophets. 
There is nearly as much prophecy concerning them 
in the old testament as there is of our Seviour. As 
Christ is referred to under many different names, so 
are they. In many places only one is referred to, as 
in the text where he is called Michael, the great 
I)rince, which proves he or they will come from the 
tribe of Judah and of the line of David. In Zach. 4 : 
6, he is called Zerubbabel, which is you see the Bible 
dictionary of proper names, mean prince of Judah; 
and the olive branches, or trees, as they are called 
in Revelations 11: 4, where in both places they are 
called the two candlesticks. And in Isaiah 11: 1, we 
find more proof he is a descendant of Jesse, David's 
father. To comp^are Isaiah 11 with Revelations 11, 
you will see they refer to the same person. One 
says, "■ He shall smite the earth with the rod of his 
mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay 
the wicked, and righteousmess shall be the girdle of 
his loins, and faithfulness shall be the girdle of his 
reign." The other, '^ I will give power to my two 



80 

witnesses, and tliey shall propliecy one thousand two 
hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. 
These are the two olive trees and the two candle- 
sticks which stand before the God of the earth, and 
if any man T^ill hurt them, fire proceedeth out of 
their mouth and devoureth their enemies, and if any 
man hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. 
These have power to shut heaven that it rain not in 
the days of their proi)hecy (or in 3^ years), and have 
power over waters to turn them to blood and to smite 
the earth with all plagues as often as they will. And 
after they shall have finished their testimony, the 
beast that ascended out of the bottomless pit shall 
make war against them and shall overcome them and 
kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the 
street, this is spiritually called Soddom and Egypt, 
where also our Lord was crucified. (It is Jerusalem 
called Soddom, or the land of sin, because Ante- 
christ will then have his throne there.) And they of 
the people and tongues and nations shall see tJaeir 
dead bodies three days and a half and shall not suffer 
their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that 
dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them and 
make merrv, and shall send sifts one to another, be- 
cause these two prox3hets tormented them that dwelt 
on the earth. And after three days and a half the 
spirit of life from God entered into them and they 
stood upon their feet, and great fear fell on them 
that saw them. And they heard a great voice from 
heaven saying unto them, come up hither. And they 
ascended up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies 
beheld them. And the same hour there was a great 
earthquake and a tenth part of the city fell, and in 
the earthquake were slain of men, seven thousand 
men. The second woe is past and behold the third 
woe Cometh quickly. And the seventh angel sound- 
ed; and there were great voices in heaven saying the 
kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of 



81 



our Lord and of his Christy and he shall reign for 
ever and ever." 

Here we have a pretty full 'history of the two wit- 
nesses. As God saves the best things for the last, 
so he has saved the greatest of the prophets for the 
last. And in them the power of all the former 
prophets are combined. Moses and Aaron are a 
good type of them, and as Moses was the principle 
law giver and leader of them, so will it be with these. 
The one called in Malachi 4: 5. Elijah will be the 
principle one and leader, while the other will receive 
the truth from him and act the part of a priest or 
spokesman, as Aaron was tO' Moses, and assist him 
in publishing the mystery of the kingdom, or the 
seal b^^ T\^hich the saints w^ill be sealed to the world, 
as one of the early fathers tell us. Malachi says, '' I 
will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming 
of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he 
shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, 
and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest 
I come and smite the earth with a curse." This is 
not of course to be taken literally, for Christ said, ^' I 
came to turn the father against the son, and son 
against the father," but he meant by the fathers, the 
Apostles, or fathers of the early church, and by the 
sons he means us. If apostolic faith and power had 
not been lost there would be nothing to restore, and 
no need for Elijah to come, for his mission first is to 
restore to the cliurch the gospel in its apostolic 
purity. And if all men would receive the truth 
taug^ht by him there would be no Antechrist to come, 
for he would be converted and no need of the curse, 
but as the m'asses will not receive the truth, the 
curse, or great tribulation, and Antechrist will have 
to come. So the first duty of the witnesses is to give 
the seal to all who will receive it, but no church as 
a whole will receive it, for he came not to save the 
nominal chui'ch but to take a people out of the 



82 



churches, and to get the remainder of the 144,000 
will take three and a half years, for part of them 
were sealed before the seal was lost, or during the 
first three hundred years of the Christian era. Rev. 
7: 2, says, '' I saw another angel ascend from the 
East having the seal of the living God, and he cried 
with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was 
given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, hurt not 
the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have 
sealed the servants of God in their foreheads, and I 
heard the number of them that were sealed, and 
there sealed 144,000 of all the tribes of the children of 
Israel (except Dan)." By not hurting the earth or 
trees means in this period there w^ill be no insects 
or pests to prevent the bountiful product of the 
earth, so it would yield enough to last during the 3^ 
years of famine, but in w^ar it will be wasted as it 
was when Titus took Jerusalem, and it will be the 
duty of the witnesses to collect and store for the 
christians provisions for the famine, for God will 
cause them to collect in some place in this country 
where Antechrist cannot enter, for in Rev. 12, the 
church is represented as the woman and the 144,000 
as the child. '' And she brought forth a man child 
who was to rule all nations w^ith a rod of iron, and 
the child was caught up to God and to his throne. 
And the woman fled into the wilderness where she 
had a place prepared of God that they should feed 
her there a thousand two hundred and threescore 
days (or 3^ years)." 

The christians that understand these things and 
have property, will sell it and bring their money to 
the witnesses and have all things common as the 
early christians did, and the abundance of grain will 
make it very cheap, for it will be of little use to 
hoard property when we expect to be translated into 
heaven in three years or less, and those who do not 
and have farm's will not be of any value through the 



83 



famine and they will be burned up with the world 
at the end of the age. And money even to the anti- 
christians will not be of any value to them during the 
tribulation, for it w^ill not buy food w*hen there is 
none, and those that have food will not exchange it 
for money, for Hippolytus says, " At that time silver 
find gold will be cast out into the streets and no one 
shall gather them^ for all things shall be held an 
offense." 

Some say that the prediction of the coming of 
Elijah was fulfilled in John the Baptist, and I was 
of that opinion until the Holy Spirit set me right. 
But a close study of the text will show that he did 
not fulfill the prophecy, for the great and dreadful 
day of the Lord is his second, nor first advent. He 
preached repentence but did not restore all things. 
He told the Jews, as recorded in Jo'hn 1: 20-24, he 
was not Christ, nor Elijah, as prophecied in Malachi, 
but was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
make straight the way of the Lord, as saith the 
prophet Isaiah (40: 3). During His first advent the 
Jews and even the Disciples did not understand that 
Christ was to come the second time, and those that 
received Him supposed all prophecies concerning 
Him was to then be fulfilled, and the doubting Jews 
said he is not Christ, for Elijah has not come, and 
John said he was not him, and he was to come first. 
So Jesus did not attempt to explain to them his sec- 
ond advent, but said if Elijah is in the way of your 
accepting Me, accept John as Elijah, whom you slew, 
and you cannot deny me. Christ said in Matt. 11: 
14, " If ye will receive it this is Elijah that was for 
to come." As a forerunner of Christ and a preparer 
of the way, John and the witnesses fill the same 
place, are entitled to the same name, but nowhere in 
the old testament can I see any prediction that was 
fulfilled in John. The one in Isaiah 40, applies to 
the witnesses, for it ^says, '^ Prepare ye the way of the 



84 



Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our 
God. Eyery valley shall be exalted and every moun- 
tain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked 
shall be made straight and the rough places plain, 
and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all 
flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord 
hath spoken it.'^ This was not fulfilled in John's 
day, but will be at the end, when the earth will be 
burned by the command of the raised and flying wit- 
nesses, when the rocks will melt and be reduced to 
dust, and mountains and hills be moved in the seas 
and valleys, and the earth will be as white as snow, 
like a bride prepared for her husband, as the hidden 
word of the Apostle John declares, '' The witnesses 
will not come from the people now known as Jews, 
but from the descendants of those who were con- 
verted to Christ by the preaching of the Apostles 
and forsook their Jewish faith and customs and be- 
came identified with the Gliristians and lost their 
identity as Jews." Perhaps 50,000 Jews were con- 
verted during the first century. I find a chronolog- 
ical list in which I saw that the Apostles James, 
John and James the less were cousins of the 
Lord and decendants of David, as w^ell as several 
other prominent New Testament characters. Judge 
and James, the just bishop of Jerusalem, were the 
Lord's brothers. None of the early Fathers admit- 
ted that the coming of Elijah was fulfilled by John 
the Baptist. Hippolytus refers to him three time 
and calls him one of the witnesses who is to occupy 
half of the last seven years. 

In the instructions of Commodianus, 240 A. D., 
'^ Nero (Antechrist) shall be raised up from hell. 
Elijah shall first come to seal the beloved ones, at 
which time the whole earth on all sides, for seven 
years shall tremble. *But Elijah shall occupy half 
of the time and Nero shall occupy ^alf. Then the 
whole Babylon (Kome) being reduced to ashes, its 



85 



embers shall thence be advanced to Jerusalem and 
the Latin conqueror shall then say, I am Ohrist whom 
ye always pray to. He does many wonders, since he 
is the false prophet. Asterius Urbanus, 232 A. D., 
" And I saw another angel ascending from the east 
having the seal of the living God." He speaks of 
Elijah, the prophet, who is the predecessor of Ante- 
christ for the restoration of the church from the 
great and intolerable persecution. 

The Jew in his argument with Justin, the martyr, 
says Jesus was not the Ohrist, for Elijah was to come 
first. Justin explains that there was to be two ad- 
vents and the coming of Elijah was to preced the 
second. Tertulien only refers to Elijah once in his 
writings that has come down to us, and that is on 
the resurrection, to refute the belief that the resur- 
rection was already past by referring to future 
events that must occur before the resurrection. Up 
to the present moment they have not tribe by tribe 
smitten their breasts looking on Him whom they 
pierced. No one as yet has fallen in with Elijah. 
No one has as yet escaped from Antechrist. No one 
has as yet had to bewail the downfall of Babylon 
(Rome). And is there now (anybody who has risen 
again except the heretics? 

Some of the Fathers (seemed to convey the opinion 
that the Elijah to come was the same one that walk- 
ed the earth twenty-five hundred years ago, or rather 
ran it when a weak woman got after him, and hid 
himself where none but God could find him and re- 
buked him by saying, " What doest thou here Eli- 
jah?" For he said, " It is enough now, O Lord, take 
away my life for there is a woman aifter me." He 
was no slouch of a runner for he outran the king's 
chariot 'horses when there was a thunder shower 
after him. I am not in the habit of getting prophets 
by the ears, but he needed a gentle rebuke for mak- 
ing fun at Baal's poor, or rather fat prophets, who had 



86 

been so well fed at the Queen's table, by telling them 
to cry louder, for their Grod was on a journey or 
asleep and needed waking, when they were doing 
their best. 

What a relief it must have been to Ahab to have 
400 of his complimentary guests drop out of his board 
at one time. But I think that the Lord will require 
some one of a little more courage to beard the great 
wild beast in his den. After all he was well noted 
for his courage as for his timidity. Few men would 
care to face the man that had been seeking his life 
for three years, or face and put to death 400 of Baal's 
prophets, or none but Antechrist would think of look- 
ing where he did for a match to light his fire after 
he had prepared his liquid kindling wood. He was 
a great prophet and did his work faithfully, and the 
Lord overlooked his weakness and sent his chariot 
and fiery chargers and took him home in great style, 
and there he will let him rest, for the Lord is not so 
short of material that he has got to use a man twice 
over. Why any man can be Elijah if he will get the 
same spirit and power! It is easy enough if he dares 
to be a Daniel. But they are hard to find for I have 
vainly looked ^ye years for one. All that I have 
found will not stand alone without being propped 
up. 

Rev. Mr. Rauscenbusche, of New York, read before 
the Brotherhood meeting last August, a paper en- 
titled '' The Coming Apostle," which showed the deep 
spirituality of the writer. As near as I can recol- 
lect, in part he said, '' He would lay aside all creeds 
and churchism, would receive and walk in the Holy 
Spirit, be ignored and rejected by his former friends, 
churches and relatives; persecuted by the churches 
and christians; would be a bearer of the cross until 
the cross bore him; would be wafted on the pinions 
of angels to his future home, where he would be re- 
ceived with songs of triumph." Any who would like 



87 



to fill the bill hold up jour hand, for there are places 
waiting for a number of such. 

The end of the age will occur on Passover week, 
which I believe is in April, and if the names of the 
two witnesses are published by next April, all may 
know that the end will occur in April, 1907, and the 
rupture or first resurrection in the autumn of 1903. 
But if those who reject these teachings it will come 
to like a thief in the night. '' But ye," says the 
Apostles, '' are not of the night.'' Those who have 
set the time of the end have not closely studied the 
scriptures and ignored the reign of Antechrist and 
of the witnesses. Some who have closely studied 
prophecy have placed the time early in 1900. Among 
those w^as the saintly Edw^ard Irving, who lived in 
England 65 years ago and was ejected from the 
church of England because he was too pious to suit 
the great worldly church, but most of his congre- 
gation stuck to him. 

I have not exhausted the predictions; of the wit- 
nesses in the bible. I heard the evangelist, G. O. 
Needham, in his .sermon on angels truly say that the 
angels of the seven churches in Kevelations second 
and third were men. They are types of the history 
of the church through the ages and we are living in 
the two last. The angel of Pihiladelphia can be no 
one but he who will give the key or seal to the 144, 
000 who will escape the tribulation. " These things 
saith he that hath the key of David, 'he that openeth 
and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man open- 
eth (that means the same as, who thou shalt bind on 
earth shall be bound in heaven, and who thou shalt 
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, as He said 
to Peter, for as Peter opened the Kingdom Elijah will 
reopen it). Behold, I set before thee an open door 
and no man can shut it (as the Nicaen council did 
before). Behold, I will make them which say they 
are Jews (Christians) and are not and do lie. Behold, 



88 



I will make them come and worship before thy feec 
and to know that I have loved thee. Because thou 
hast kept the words of my patients I also will keep 
thee from the hour of temptation (tribulation) that 
shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell 
upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly; hold that 
fast which thou hast that no man take thy crown. 
Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the tem- 
ple of my God, and he shall go no more out.'' 

The angel of the church of Laodecea, called the 
Amen (the last prophet), the faithful and true wit- 
ness ,(one of the witnesses), the beginning of the 
creation of God (one who will restore the truth and 
bring in the kingdom), is the same a s the one of Phila- 
delphia, and those who accept his message will leave 
Laodecea and join the former, while the latter is the 
popular or lukewarm churches of to-day which will 
have to pass through t'he tribulation. The ang^el's 
message is " I know thy works that thou are neither 
cold nor hot. I would that thou wert cold or hot. 
Because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot 
I T^dll spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou 
say est I am rich land increased in goods and have 
need of nothing and knoweth not that thou are 
wretched and miserable and poor and blind and 
naked, I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the 
fire, that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment that 
thou mayest be clothed and the shame of thy naked- 
ness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eye- 
salve that thou mayest see. As many as I love T 
refbuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore and re- 
pent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any 
man hear my voice and will open the door I will come 
in to him and sup with him and he with me. To him 
that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in mv 
throne even as I also overcome and am set down with 
my father in Ms throne." 

Who and where are tlae witnesses? Look among 



89 



the great theologians, but not many of the mighty are 
chosen. There was one, Nicodemus, among the doc- 
tors of the law, in Christ's time, and he was afraid 
of the light but was anxious to secretly learn the 
truth. There may be one now but I have not found 
him. I have said that 1 would rather undertake the 
task of bringing Eobert G. Ingersoll into the king- 
dom than a D. D., for I believe he was honest and 
would accept a gospel founded on common sense and 
rc^ason. I do not wonder that the world is full of in- 
fidelity when they try to cram down our throats 
such nonsense as Imputed Eighteousness and the 
snake story. As no proxjhet is honored in his own 
country, we need not look among them that have re- 
ceived honors from men. As they will be dressed in 
sackcloth there is no need of looking among them that 
wear broadcloth and steam laundried linen and visit 
a barbershop thrice a week. You will have no trou- 
ble to find men who claim to be them; I know of four 
or ^ve. When you find a man who is dispised for his 
piety, and can explain how Peter earned the keys of 
the kingdom, and what the Mystery of God that was 
hid from all ages and generations, as Paul says in 
Ephesians 3d, is and how the mystery became lost, 
and what the meaning of the Cross of Christ is, you 
may put your finger on him as the man; and the man 
that receives him in the name of a prophet and aids 
him in his work, will receive a prophet's reward. As 
Elijah's mantle fell on Elisha at his translation, so 
the mantle of the 144,000 will fall on the witnesses at 
the rapture after which they will have powder. God 
says: '^Behold, I make all things new." Before a 
man builds a new house he removes the old one. 
Then the Amen or Witness will show Antechrist 
that he has power over fire also, and when he takes 
his flight from the earth he says the word and the 
earth becomes a ball of fire. That is why he is the 
beginning of the creation of God. Commodianas says: 



90 

" Amen flames on the nations, suddenly there is 
darkness with the din of heaven. The Lord casts 
down His eyes so that the earth trembles. He cries 
out so all may hear: ^'Long have I been silent while 
I bore your doings.' They cry out together, com- 
plaining and groaning too late." They howl, they 
bewail, nor is there room found for the wicked. 
What shall the mother do for her sucking child 
T\hen she herself is burned up? In flames of fire the 
Lord will judge the wicked. The flames will not 
touch the just. Such will be the heat that the stones 
themselves will melt. The wind assemble into light- 
ning, the heavenly wrath rages and wherever the 
wicked man fleeth he is seized upon by the fire, as the 
hidden words of John declares." This is the only 
quotation or reference to John's other book of revela- 
tions, as it was hid then. Commodianas lived 200 
years after Christ. There is a larger work of his on 
this subject that I have not seen. 



TENTH STEP. 



Baptism and Hobby Horses. 



" Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil con- 
science and our bodies washed with pure water." — 
Heb. 10:22. 

Last winter I made a hobbyhorse; not for me to 
ride, for it would not be becoming nor profitable for 
me to spend my time jolting on a hobbyhorse, but 
for my little grandson; and a prouder little fellow 
you could rarely find than he was when he mounted 
his steed and started on his first ride. N^othing 
pleases a baby boy as well as a horse, and this to 
him completely filled the bill, for of course babies 
could not manage real live horses; but it is a horse to 
him. And we named it Dot, after a horse hisi father 
owned, and if you tell him it is not a horse he will 
say it is, for grandpa says it is and I guess grandpa 
knows what a horse is. If he fallsi or his mothert 
spanks him, he goes to his horse and rides away all 
of the pain. I believe a hobbyhorse is a fine thing 
and I wish every little boy had one. The beauty 
of it is thev take so little room; the little fellow will 
ride all day on a single yard of carpet. But we 
hope to soon see them outgrown and put away, 
for we vrould be sorry to see our grown up sons 
spending their time riding hobbyhorses and playing 
with children's toys and drawing milk from their 
mother's breast, when the^^ ought to be managing 
a coach and four. I knew a man (if 50 years and 
6 feet of growth will make one), who was sole heir 
to vast estates, that never outgrew his hobbyhorse 
and spent his time playing with children's toys, and 



92 

his mind never developed enough to realize the 
value of money. Paul says, '' When I wa« a child, 
I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought 
as a child; but when I became a man I put away 
childish things." 

Water baptism is simply a child's plaything, 
which we are to enjoy when we are first converted 
or are babes in Christ. It contains no saving power, 
neither does it relieve us from a single temptation, 
and is the starting point of spiritual growth from 
infancy to manhood. Washing the body can never 
cleanse the heail, yet it is a type of the inward 
cleansing, and I recommend the same for spiritual 
children who are unable to bear the strong meat of 
the Word as I do the hobbyhorse for literal ones. 
I fear a large majority of tiiose who profess to be 
Christians to-day never get beyond the baptismal 
waters, and like the child, spend their lives riding 
on a single yard of carpet, and like the man referred 
to, are heirs to vast estates but have not enough 
spiritual ability to enable them to possess them or 
realize their privileges. Paul was ever urging his 
converts to grow, aud said in Hebrews 6: '' There^ 
fore leaving the principles of the doctrines of Christ 
let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the 
foundation of repentance from dead work and faith 
toward God of the doctrine of baptism and of laying 
on of hands and of resurrection of the dead and of 
eternal judgment.'' Just before this, he says: '' We 
have many things to say and hard to be uttered, see- 
ing ye are dull of hearing, for when ye ought to be 
teachers ye have need that one teach you again the 
first principles of the oracles of God, and are be- 
come such as have need of milk and not of strong 
meat, for every one that uses milk is unskillful in 
the word of righteousness, for he is a babe." 

These w^ords of Paul apply to the church of to-day 
with as much force as it did to the Hebrew Chris- 



93 



tians in Ms day, and to pulpit as well as the pew, 
and to the D. D. and LL. D. as well as the Rev. 

All children's toys haye their proper use. A hob- 
by horse is safe if used on the nhrsery carpet, but I 
would not recommend it as a coaster nor on a tobog- 
gan slide. There is also a proper way to use the 
shadow of baptism, and its typical meaning is wash- 
ing before eating (of the Lord's supper). The Jews 
never ate except they first w^ashed. One Lord's day 
afternoon I attended a pedobaptist meeting, after 
which the minister addressed me on the subject of 
immersion. I told him the Jews went from Jeru- 
salem to Jordan to be baptised of John, because 
there was ]nuch water there, and I had seen four 
adult persons baptised that forenoon in a pint bowl 
and there was enough w^ater left to baptise the 
whole congregation in the same way, and Jerusalem 
must have been a dry place if they had to go all the^ 
way to Jordan to get a pint of water to be baptised 
in. Do your servants who come in from weeding 
the garden prepare themselves for dinner by put- 
ting the ends of their fingers in a pint of water and 
touching their foreheads. Tertullian, who is the 
holiest and wisest of the Apostolic Fathers, has writ- 
ten amply on baptism during the second century. 
He says: '' When we are going to enter the water, 
but a little before, in the presence of the congre- 
gation and under the hand of the president, we 
solemnly profess that we disown the devil, his pomjj 
and his angels, whereupon we are thrice immersed, 
making a somewhat ampler pledge than the Lord 
had appointed in the gospel. Then we are taken up 
as new-born babes; we taste first of all a mixture 
of milk and honey (the only sweet of those times), 
and from that day we refrain from the daily bath 
for a whole week. 'We take also before daylight, 
from the hands of the president, the sacrament of 
the Eucharist."' Hypolitus, another of the early 



94 

Fathers, confirms this, and says the three immer- 
sions are in honor of the Trinitv, in whose name they 
are immersed. Tertullian gives one chapter on pre- 
sumptions baptism after faithless repentance. He 
says: ''Who will grant to you, a man of so faith- 
less repentance, one single sprinkling of any water 
whatever? To approach it by stealth, indeed; to 
get a minister appointed over this business misled 
by you is easy, but God takes foresight of his own 
treasure and suiters not the unworthv to steal a 
march upon it. What, in fact, does he say? ]S'oth- 
ing liid that shall not be revealed. Draw whatever 
veil of darkness you please over your deeds, G-od is 
light." This is the only reference he makes to 
sprinkling, but it explains the position of the church 
at his day on the subject. 

Tertullian died at an advanced age, A. D. 220, and 
with him, it might be said, died the Apostolic spirit 
and power of the churcn. The next important 
writer was Cyprian, who became Bishop of Carthage, 
A. D. 2^8, and was beheaded 258. He is credited 
with planting many errors in the church which have 
since remained with it, and the S2 epistles he hasf» 
left gives a very clear view of his teachings. He 
was the first to change the Apostolic form of bap- 
tism, which was first done by sanctioning clinic 
baptism for the sick. A young man was converted 
on what was believed his deathbed. Xot being able 
to be taken to the fount he was baptised by pouring 
a large quantity of water over him. When he re- 
covered the question arose whether the baptism was 
sufficient or if he should not be rebai^tised by im- 
mersion, and the dispute was settled by Cyprion, 
who decided clinic baptism was sufficient and for 
the first time established it in the churcJi. He 
raised baptism to a saving ordinance by removing 
the substance of baptism and putting the shadow in 
its place. He next decided that a quantity of water 



95 



was not necessary and sprinkling was as good a& 
pouring, for which he became a strong aclvocate. 
The Episcopal Bishop of Buffalo, A. C. Cox, Ameri- 
can editor of '' The Fathers," says: '' St. Cyprion 
seems to be the earliest apologist for sprinkling/' 
When he raised skin washing to a saving ordinance, 
without which none could be saved, he made it 
necessary that all should be washed, and established 
for the first, infant baptism, of which Tertullian 
makes no mention. If he did he would have to ex- 
plain how an infant could renounce the devil and 
his pomp although they might be able to take the 
milk and honey all right. 

To baptise a person before he is converted would 
be like washing an infant before it is born, for we 
are not born into spiritual life or become a babe in 
Christ before our conversion. Palestine isi repeat- 
edly called the land flowing with milk and honey 
which is only true in a spiritual sense, and was the 
only place that the Lord permitted the Jews to 
fully establish the law of Moses, but never became 
the permanent home of the Christians. As the milk 
and honey is infants' food, so the law^ could only 
produce spiritual infants, who stood precisely where 
the convert does to-day, only it is our privilege to 
go on to perfection w^hile they were obliged to re- 
main infants and live on infants' food, for the blood 
of bulls and goats could not make the comers there- 
of perfect, while we are looking for a better country 
and better fare than milk and hone^^, for he says: 
" In this mountain shall' the Lord of hosts make 
unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines 
on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines 
on the lees well refined," and Christ said: '' I will 
compel you to sit down and gird myself and serve 
you." But not with milk and honey. 

I have come to those things that are hard to be 
uttered, seeing you are dull of hearing, but by your 



% 

ability to hear I can judge of your spiritual growth. 
Christ said: ''He who wdll come after me let him 
take up his cross and follow me;'' also, '' I have an- 
other baptism to be baptised with, and how am I 
strengthened until it is accomplished." This was 
a baptism of blood, for we are called by water and. 
chosen by blood. Paul says: "Ye have not yet re- 
sisted unto blood striving against sin, and ye have 
forgotten the exhortation w^hich speaketh unto you 
as unto children. My son despise not the chasten- 
ing of the Lord, nor faint when thou are rebuked of 
him, for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and 
scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. But if ye 
be without cha,stisement whereof all sons are par- 
takers, then are ye bastards and not sons, for you 
must be a son to inherit a crown. Also he says: 
'' The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit 
that we are the children of God; and if children 
then heirs of God and joint heirs mth Christ. (Mark 
on what condition.) If so be that we sulfer with 
him that we may also be glorified together. For 
1 reckon that the suffering of this present time is not 
worthy to be compared to the glory that shall bfe 
revealed in us." So you see by receiving this blood 
baptism we not only become sons and heirs but per- 
fect, for Peter says: '' He who has suffered in the 
llesh has ceased from sin. Tertullian's chapter on 
the subject entitled of the second baptism of blood. 
We have a second font of blood of w^hich the Lord 
said, " I have to be baptised with." A baptism 
when he had been baptised already, for He had come 
by means of w^ater and blood, just as John has writ- 
ten that he baptised by the water, glorified by the 
blood, to make ns in like manner called by water 
and chosen by blood. These two baptisms He sent 
out from the wounds in His pierced side in order 
that they who believed in His blood might be bathed 
in the water; they who have been bathed in the 



97 



Avater might likewise drink the blood. This is the 
baptism that doth stand in lieu of the fontal bath- 
ing when that has not been received, and restores it 
when lost. 

Another holy Father has written a grand article 
on the three baptisms. It is too long to give you 
here, but will copy a sentence: ^'Assuredly both iw 
water and none the less in their own blood, and then 
especially in the Holy Spirit, men may be baptised.'^ 
Bo you see w^e are called by water and chosen by 
blood, but we read, many are called but few chosen. 
Are you too dull of hearing to take this in? If you 
are not and wish to, get the Spirit and he will make 
it plain. But if you think wdiere ignorance is bliss 
it i« folly to be wise, then bring out your hobbyhorse 
and jolt yourself on that yard of nursery carpet un- 
til you are calhz-d to the feast of milk and honey, 
wdiile we feast on the fat things full of marrow. 

We read that an angel visited the waters of Be- 
thesda and healed them, and who was immersed in 
them was healed. Now if some of the water sprink- 
led on a person healed him why did the helpless 
man lie so long waiting for some one to put him in 
if a few drops sprinkled in his face would have 
healed him? He certainly could have got that. 
Tertullian gives Instances of angels visiting baptisr 
mal waters, and adds: ^' Why have we abducted 
these Instances lest any think too hard for belief 
that a holy angel of God should grant his x:)resence 
to water to temper them to man's salvation, while 
the evil ans^el holds frequent profane commerce with 
the selfsame element to man's ruin, as at Galveston. 

On the morning of the day I was baptised in New 
York Bay, one tilled with the Spirit and gifted with 
heavenly visions ^aw a number of angels' hovering 
over the baptismal waters. I know the humanly 
taught theologian does not believe in angel's visits, 
but if they would live the twelfth chapter of He- 



I 



98 



brews to the 22nd verse they would say with Paul: 
'' We have come to an innumerable company of an- 
gels." And angel's visits are not as few and far be- 
tween as they imagine. Christ gave the Jews the 
credit of cleansing the outside, while the Pedobap- 
tists cleanse neither the out or inside. Water 
cleans the outside and blood the inside. This wash- 
ing, Paul says, is not joyous, but grievous, but it 
brings the peaceful fruits of righteousness to those 
that exercised thereby, for our light affliction, which 
is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more ex- 
ceeding and eternal weight of glory. But these are 
not milksops nor babies' playthings. After we have 
thoroughly washed ourselves w^e are ready for the 
feasting, although I know of a church that feasts 
them and w^ashes them after. 



ELEVENTH STEP. 



Communion. 



Which also is o. trioket for babes to play with, to 
be received directly after water baptism. It is clear 
to thinking people that a bite of bread and a sip of 
wine cannot take away sin any more than the blood 
of bulls and ii;oats can, which were types of the car- 
nal nature of the sinner. Our theologians eroneousr 
ly refer them to Christ, but he was nowhere called 
a bull or a goat, but a lamb, which is also the type 
of the true follower of Christ, who said to Peter: 
" If thou lovest me feed my lambs;'' and says he will 
separate the righteous from the wicked, putting the 
sheep on the right hand, and says to them, "' Come, 
ye blessed of my father," and the goats on the left, 
saying, '^ Depart, ye cursed." Also he says, " I will 
visit the flock and punish the goats." A kid was 
given as the price of adultery, as in Gen. 38: 17-20, 
and Judges 15:1. The scapegoate typifies under the 
law those who escape the baptism of blood. Those 
who are made perfect by suffering are typified by 
the goat that was slain, which typifiy the destruc- 
tion of our carnal nature which we received from 
Adam's fall. 

When the church had made baptism a saving ordi- 
nance the}- transferred the corruptible elements of 
the Lord's supper to the literal body and blood of 
Christ, forgetting that Christ had but one literal 
body and they could not eat him up without turning 
cannibals, forgetiino- that his body is not large 
enough to go around so that each who pretended to 
LofC. 



100 



eat of his body at each communion could have a 
taste. Pious sinners slew him and ever since they 
have turned cannibals and have been eating him, and 
thev did the first with as much sanctitv as thev do 
the last. Christ did not say in reference to the sup- 
per, this is my literal body, but this is my body and 
blood of the New Testament. Testament means law. 
That is, Christ's death and resurrection established 
a new way of salvation by which only we can obtain 
his kingdom which was closed until he opened it. 
So in communincj we neither eat Christ literal] v not 
spiritually, for we do not receive the Holy Spirit by 
it. but typically the same as water baptism is a type 
of the blood, which is the inward cleansing, so com- 
munion is a tAT)e of the spiritual eating of Christ, 
which we cannot do until these temples are literally 
cleansed from all filthiness of the flesh by the bap- 
tism of the cleansing blood. Having thus washed 
we are ready to eat and Christ is as ready to be 
eaten, for he says: ^' As many as I love I rebuke 
and chasten. Be zealous therefore and repent. Be- 
hold I stand at the door and knock. If an}^ man 
hear my voice and open the door I will come in to 
him and will sup mth him and be with him. To 
him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in 
my throne even as I overcome and am sit down with 
my father in his throne. He that hath an ear let 
him hear ^vhat the spirit saith unto the churches." 
But I fear I am talking to people without ears, for 
only those who have received the spirit can hear. 
When we have received the blood we have left the 
water baptism behind. When we have filled our- 
selves with the substance we no longer hunger after 
the shadow. I have now given you the meaning of 
the two ordinances out of which so much error, dis- 
pute, persecution and bloodshed has come. 

Henry the VIII of England was the first to estab- 
lish Protestantism in England, which grew out of a 



101 



dispute with the Pope, and was organized on Cath- 
olic doctrine, only he denied the supremacy of the 
Pope and put himself in his place, but consented to 
liave the bible circulated but refused to let people 
think for themselves, so he passed what is called 
the bloody six articles. The lirst was The Keal Pres- 
ence of Christ in the Eucharist and Transubstan- 
tiation. That is, the bread become the real body 
of Christ and the substance of which it was made 
no longer exists in it. A woman that made wafers 
for the priest's communion said in presenting them: 
'' You say that after you bless them none of the orig- 
inal substance remains." He answered that all 
would be changed into the literal body of Christ. 
She replied: ''I put some arsenic poison in them, 
but if it is changed it will not hurt you." It is need- 
less to add that his faith failed. 

All who disputed, wrote or preached against the 
first article were to suffer the death penalty and 
forfeit all of their goods to the crown without being 
allowed to rescind or recant. Under this law, Thos. 
Cromwell, uncle of Oliver and the greatest reformer 
of his day. Chief Secretary of England, Master of 
the Eule and Vice General of English Monasteries, 
which he suppressed, and did more to circulate the 
Bible than any other man in his day, lost his head 
and estate for violating this legal dogma, with many 
others. Naughty children to play with innocent 
toys in this cruel way. Martin Luther stuck to this 
dogma until he came near rendering the church he 
had formed and admitted on his death bed that he 
had carri-ed his arguments too far. 

While I believe in and recommend these ordi- 
nances to the spiritual babes, I find the Lord receives 
and blesses the Quakers, who reject them, and those 
who live up to their faith, live and die happy^ prov- 
ing they are not essential to salvation. But we had 
not better be baptized until we fully believe, for 



102 



what is not of faith ig sin. A man who had preach- 
ed for the M. E.'s 12 years and sprinkled hundreds 
was convinced of the error, and was asked at the 
baptismal waters if he ever saw a candidate show 
any evidence of receiving a blessing at sprinkling. 
He replied he did not, but I see unmistakable proofs 
of it here at this immersion. So the only road to the 
kingdom is., first, to be converted; second, to be bap- 
tized; third, to partake of the Lord's supper; fourth, 
to receive the Holy Spirit; fifth, who mil lead us 
if we allo^^' him to lead, to the baptism of blood or 
chastening of the Lord; sixth, which mil open the 
door for Christ to enter our hearts when we will in 
a spiritual sense eat his flesh and drink his blood, 
for he will dwell within us., and we can say with 
Paul, I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I 
live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life 
which I now live in the flesh; 1 live by the faith of 
the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for 
me. While these ordinances are sacred and should 
betaken with solemnity, they should not be received 
for more than they are worth. A few years ago 
some young men met to hold a communion in mock- 
ery. God visited them and one or more were smit- 
ten with death. 

If 3^ou have followed me thus far and say (as some 
have) that you do not want Christ's kingclom if you 
have to give up the pleasures and vanities of this 
life to obtain it, and i3refer to run the risk of the 
great tribulation and eternal judgment, or think 
you are strong enough to scale the battlements of 
Heaven and take it by force, you are deceiving 
yourself, and we had better part company here, for 
it is useless for vou to follow me farther, for I fail 
to see how I can serve you farther, only to pray 
that the Holy Spirit will convict you and show you 
where vou stand. But on the other hand if vou 
have counted the cost and are willing to pay it, but 



103 



fear you will not be able to enter in if you try, I 
tell you your fears are groundless, for Christ said, 
"He that asketh receiyeth and he that seeketh 
lindeth and to him that knocketh the door is open." 
This applies to the most hardened sinner as well 
as the most popular preacher or the most noted 
church official. If you have not started commence 
at the first of the seven steps given above. If this 
book has not made your way clear send for my 
other (see preface). If you have not started, start 
now, for the time is limited and you cannot go over 
the road in one day. The battle at most will be a 
short one and the victory most glorious. To min- 
isters I say, if you accept the truth you will have 
to preach it, and it may cost you your pulpit; but 
if you are faithful you will take the worthiest of 
your members with you, and your bread is sure. 
So you have nothing to fear but all to gain. 



TWELFTH STEP. 



The Sabbath vs. The Lord's Day. 



The Sabbath was made for man. After I had 
resolved to follow the Lord at any cost I kept the 
Jews' Sabbath for a year, becanse I failed to find 
any authority in our Bible for observing the Lord^s 
day, and I read the Seventh Day Adventist publi- 
cations on the subject. But when I learned that 
some of the most mportant books of the New Testa- 
ment had been suppressed, as well as the works of 
the early Fathers by the corrupt church, I vvas led 
to look more carefully into the subject and found 
important errors in the teachings of the Adventists. 
The most important is that the early church kept 
the seventh day until Constantine passed a law com- 
pelling them to observe the Lord's day, which w^as 
about A. D. 825. T am prepared to prove that the 
Lord's day and not the Sabbath was observed from 
the days of the ApOvStles and even by the Apostles 
themselves. But we will first consider the meaning 
and God"s purpose in instituting it. 

We read that God made the Avorld in six days and 
rested on the Sabbath, which means seventh, for 
Theophilus, who lived in the early part of the second 
century, says, '' Concerning the seventh day, which 
all men acknowledsre but the most know not what 
among the Hebrews is called the Sabbath, is trans- 
lated into Greek the seventh; a name that is adopted 
by every nation although they know^ not the reason 
of the application." So those who call the first day 
of the week the Sabbath are in error. The Catholic 



105 



church claims the honor of changing the Sabbath 
from the seventh to the first day, but they have no 
foundation for such a claim nor authority for such 
a change^ for a church cannot date bacli of its creed, 
wJiich was first made at^ the Nicene Council, A. D. 
325, in which council they threw both Peter and his 
faith overboard but st[il!l claim to build on him. 
One who followed Christ and one of the seventy that 
he sent out to preacJi, and is called the spiritual 
father of Paul, and was for many years his com- 
panion in his labor, .of whom Christ said: " Sei>arate 
me Barnabas and Paul for the work whereunto I 
have called them.'' Putting Barnabas first, giving 
him the preference. 'We are apt to speak of them 
as Paul and Barnabas, but in Acts their names oc- 
cur 12 times, and 9 times Barnabas' name is men- 
tioned first, giving him the preference. His epistle 
was canonized by the church for 800 years and at- 
tributed to him and quoted from as scripture. In 
the Sinai codex, which is supposed to be the oldest 
Bible, it is with the other books of the New Testa- 
ment, but later it was suppressed because of some 
strong truths that it taught, and an effort was made 
to prove that it w^as written later by another man 
by that name. I quote from the introduction: 
a Origin describes it as a Catholic epistle," and 
seems to rank it among the Catholic epistles. Other 
statements have been quoted from the Fathers to 
show that they held this to be an authentic produc- 
tion of the Apostle Barnabas, and certainly no other 
name is hinted at in Christian antiquity as that 
of the writer. His worst enemies admit that he is 
an authentic writer of the early church, and caiunot 
date him later than the early part of the second 
century, for he was quoted as early as that and that 
is sufficient to prove the position of the Antenicene 
church on the Sabbath question. The 15th chapter 
is devoted to that subject, a part of which I will 



106 

quote. '^ The Sabbath is. mentioued at the begin- 
ning of the creation, thus: And God made in six 
days the works of his hands and made an end on 
the seventh day, and rested on it and sanctili.ed it 
Attend, my children, to the meaning of this expres- 
sion: He iinisheJ in six days. This implies that the 
Lord mil finish all things in six thousand years, for 
a day is Avith him a thousand years. And he him- 
self testifies, saTin<2:, behold to-dav will be a thou- 
sand years, therefore in six days, that is, in six thou- 
sand years, all things will be finished. And he rest- 
ed on the seventh day. This meaneth when his son 
Cometh again he shall destroy the time of the wick- 
ed man and judge the ungodly and change the sun, 
moon and stars, then shall He truly rest on the sev- 
enth day. Moreover He says, '' Thou shall sanctify 
it with pure hands and a pure heart." If therefore 
any one can now sanctify the day which God has 
sanctified unless he is pure in heart in all things, 
we are deceived. One properly resting sanctifies 
it, when we ourselves having received the promise, 
mckedness no longer existing, and all things having 
been made new by the Lord, shall he be able to work 
righteousness. Then we shall begin to sanctify it, 
haAdng been first sanctified ourselves. Further he 
says to them: " Your new moons and your Sabbaths 
I cannot endure." You perceive how he speaks. 
Your present Sabbaths are not acceptable to me, but 
that is what I have made, namely this, when giving 
rest to all things T shall make the beginning of the 
eighth day — ^that is the beginning of another world. 
Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joy- 
fulness, the day also on which Jesus rose from the 
dead." 

Some try to prove that He told them to put the 
Sabbath away because they did not keep the rest of 
the law. Let them prove if they can if God ever for- 
bade them to keep any part of the law^ before he put 



107 



it away. Thej obey in dropping the feast of the new 
moon, why not the Sabbath as well. They say that 
the Sahbath was included in the ten commandments 
and they were never to be annulled. But that is not 
so, for the second read : '' I will visit the iniquitiesi 
of the fathers upon the children unto the third and 
fourth genera'tion." That was given to bar the king- 
dom until Christ came to open it, for if perfection 
had been under the law Christ's coming would have 
been unnecessary, but if a man was perfect like 
Joshua, the sin of his father or grandfather could 
have been brought against him, and when Christ 
came it was no longer necessary, for he opened the 
door, so we read in Jeremiah 31: ''In those days 
shall they say no more. The fathers have eaten a 
sour grape and the cliildren's teeth are set on edge. 
But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every 
man that eateth the sour grape his teeth shall be 
set on edge." 

The six days typify the 6,000 years', and the sev- 
ent, Christ'si reign with his saints, which is our privi- 
lege to share, w^hile those who keep the Sabbath 
will be our subjects for, and we observe the eighth 
or first in honor of the time when Christ shall re- 
store the kingdom to Him and He commence his 
eternal reign. To observe the seventh day would 
be self worship, or bowing to the throne oo which 
we sit, for Christ says: '• He who overcomes^ shall 
sit on my throne." So the Sabbath w^as not changed 
but annulled, and the Lord's day instituted for a dif- 
ferent purpose and on a different principle. There 
is no command to abstain from w^ork which Christ 
tried to teach the Jews, and he Avas blamed more 
for refusing to observe it after their law than any- 
thing else. Christ taught us to do well, not nothing 
on the Sabbath day. I will quote from some of the 
rest of the Fathers to show how thev observe it for 



108 



the benefit of those who are not willing to receive 
the epistle of Barnabas: 

'* Tnis custom of not bendino- the knee on Sundav 
is a svmbol of the lesurreciion throuo-h which we 
have been set free bv the grace of Christ from sin 
and from death, which has been pnt to death under 
hJm. XoAY this custom took its rise from the Apos- 
tolic times, as the blessed Prenaeus. the martyr and 
Bisho}) of Lyons, declare He was a disciple and com- 
panion of tiie Apostle John.'' 

Peter. Bishop of Alexandria, says: *• But on the 
Lord's dav we ouo'ht not to fast, for it is the clav of 
ioY for the resurrection of the Lord, and on it. savs 
he. we ought not to even bow the knee." 

Bordessa savs: " On one dav. the first of the week, 
we assemble ourselves together." 

Tertullian. A. D. 150: ''The Holy Spirit upbraided 
the Jews with their holv da vs. Your Sabbaths and 
new moons, saith he, my soul hateth. '\^'e to whom 
Sabbachs are strange and the new moons formerlv 
beloved of God. Of the Jews he says: O bitter 
fidelitv to the notions of their own sects which claim 
no solemnity of the Christians for itself for the Lord's 
dav nor Pentecost, even if thev had known them 
W(juld they have shared them with us; for thev 
would fear lest thev would seem to be Christians. 
We are not apprehensive lest we seem to be heath- 
ens." 

So we see the Sabbath was not changed, but an- 
nulled, and the Lord's dav instituted for an entirely 
different x^tirpose to commemorate the risen Lord 
and the commencement of God's eternal reign. As 
the Jews Avere taught to observe the Sabbath to 
commemorate Christ and his brethren's reign over 
them during the seventh millenium. so we are to 
observe the eighth day in honor to the eighth mil- 
lenium. when we will resign our crowns for some- 



109 

thing better; for of the increase of His government 
tliere will be no end. 

Since tlie time of the Nicene council the church 
rejected Christ's cross for themselves, which caused 
them to go back to the spirit of the law^ if not the 
letter, and consequently they lose the crown and 
Ohrist will avail them nothing. For them the Sab- 
bath is proper, but if we desire to reign witn Christ 
we must pass over millennial worship) and honoi 
God's reign beyond. I have observed that spiritual 
people who go back to Sabbath observance lose 
their spiritual power. One of the leaders of the 
Seventh Day Church left it a few years ago and gave 
for a reason that the blessing did not follow its ob- 
servance. Attempts to legislate men into the King- 
dom of Heaven have proved a failure, for we cannot 
compel men to be holy. Law makers who try to 
compel men w^ho think it is their duty to rest on the 
seventh da^^ in obedience to the fourth command- 
ment, make them break it by resting on the first, 
for it says, six days shalt thou labor, and we cannot 
labor six days of the week and rest two, and God's 
'' shalt " is just as imperative as his '' shalt not." 
And we are commanded to work as, well as rest; 
and all such laws are unconstitutional, for our state 
and national constitution gives us religious liberty. 

The day commences at sunset, for the evening and 
the morning was the first day, and the day typifies 
the history of the ages. The beautiful sunset was 
the newly created w^orld, but sin brought darkness of 
the antediluvian world. Moses with the law brought 
the dawn, and Christ the noonday, and the millen- 
nium the sunset, but there will be no night to fol- 
low, for it does not say the evening and morning 
makes the seventh day, for it will close with the 
beginning of God's glorious reign. 

The Fathers unanimously taught the observance 
of the Lord's day, not particularly as a day of rest, 



110 

but of jo J. One saj^s, he who fasts on that day is 
guilty of the blood and body of Christ. A day of 
alms giying. Upon the first day of the week let 
every one lay by him in store as God hath prospered 
him, that there be no gathering when I come — 1 Cor. 
16: 2. It was also the day on which they held their 
meetings. 

Tertullian, A. D. 150, says: ''It follows, accord- 
ingly, that in so far as abolition of carnal circum- 
cision and of the old law is demonstrated as having 
been consummated at its specific time, so also the 
observance of the Sabbath is demonstrated to have 
been temporary. And through this arises the ques- 
tion for us, what Sabbath God wills us to keej). For 
the Scripture points to a Sabbath eternal and a Sab- 
bath temporal. For Isaiah says, your Sabbath my 
soul hateth, and in another place, my Sabbath ye 
have profaned. Whence we discern that the tem- 
poral Sabbath is human, and the eternal Sabbath 
is accounted divine." 



THIRTEENTH STEP. 



Eating and Drinking. 



Whither therefore je eat, or drink, or whatever 
je do, do all to the glorj of God. — 1 Oor. 10 : 31. 

I address those who eat to live, not those who 
live to eat. I find many who profess the worthy 
name of Christ who are unwilling to make any sacri- 
fice of their appetite for His sake and never forego 
a tempting meal for the sake of fasting, even when 
their impaired liealth requires it. God never with- 
held anything from Ms people that was for their 
good, and abstaining from food from 18 to 21 hours 
once or twice a week is promotive of health. A dis- 
arrangement of the stomach and bowels is generally 
corrected by such a fast. I know of a number who 
use no other remedy, and sometimes prolong it from 
24 to 48 hours if necessary. 1 recently read of a 
minister who fasted for 40 days from the advice of 
his physician, to cure prolonged stomach trouble, 
with good results. To keep those organs healthy it 
is necessary to give them frequent rest. Peihaps 
no class needs more warning on this subject than 
ministers, for when they call upon us we are apt to 
set the richest but not the most wholesome food be- 
fore them, and their service does not require enough 
bodily exercise to aid its digestion, so many are af- 
flicted with dyspepsia and gout, from which Spur- 
geon died. Inquiring for Moody in a crowed, 1 w^as 
told he was the big man. Most ministers shoAV the 
result of high living. 

If we desire to approach near unto God we must 



112 

abKstain from all of the appetites of the body to drive 
out the unembodied evil spirits that inhabit our 
bodies, as Paul teaches in 1 Oor. 7: 5. But this was 
only milk for babes. As an example for us Christ 
continued his fast 40 days during His temptation to 
starve the demons out. No wonder they wanted the 
stones turned to bread, but when they failed the> 
left Him. 

Olemment of Alexandria, an able writer of the 
second century, wrote a, valuable article on this sub- 
ject. He says: '' Some men live that they may eat, 
as the irrational beings whose life is their bellies 
and nothing else, but the instructor enjoins us to eat 
that we may live.'' People dare to call by the name 
of food their dabbling in luxuries, which glide into 
mlschieveous pleasure. Antophanus, the Delian 
physician, said that this variety of viands was the 
one cause of disease. For my part I am sorry for 
this disease; while they are not ashamed to sing the 
praises of their delicacies. Altering these by means 
of condiments the gluttons gape for the sauces. 
Whatever the earth and the deptn of the sea and the 
unmeasured space of the air produce, they cater for 
their gluttony. In their greed and solicitude, the 
gluttons seem to sweep the world with a draig-net to 
gratify their luxurious tastes. These gluttons sur- 
rounded with the sound of the hissing frying-pan 
and wearing their whole life away at the pestle and 
mortar cling to matter like fire. More than that, they 
emasculate plain food, namely bread, by straining oft 
the nutritious part of the grain so that the necessary 
part of food becomes matter of luxury. There is no 
limit to epicurism among men. For it has driven 
them to sweetmeats, honey cakes and sugar plums, 
inventing a multitude of desserts, hunting after all 
manner of dishes. A man like this seems to me to 
be all jaw and nothing else. Desire not, says the 
scripture, rich men's dainties, for they belong to a 



113 



false and base life, they partake of luxurious dishes 
which a Jittle after go to the dunghilll. But we who 
seek the heayenly bread must rule the belly, which 
is beneath heaven, and much more the things which 
are agreeable to it, which God shall destroy, says 
the apostle, justly execrating gluttonous desires. 
For it is not seemly that we, after the passions of 
the rich man's son in the gospel, should as prodigally 
abuse the father's gift; but we should use them' 
without undue attachment to them, as having com- 
mand over ourselves. For we are enjoined to rule 
over meats, not to be slaves to them. Any food or 
drink that has a tendency to bring us und^er its power 
is unhealthy and should not be used. I refer to such 
as tea, coffee, fermented and distilled liquors, snuff 
and tobacco. 

Many contend that the law given in Leviticus, 11th 
chapter, does not apply to the Christian age and 
modern church, but the truth is the modern church 
is neither Jewish nor Christian, they neither obey 
the law nor the gospel. They go back to the law to 
justify themselves in going to war, living in sin, 
taking usury and many other things which the gos- 
pel precludes; but reject it in eating meats forbidden 
in the law but not referred to in the gospel, be- 
cause the Jews were more strenuous observers of the 
law of eating then as they are now and need no 
teaching in Christ's time on that subject. But the 
church now lusts after forbidden meats and excuses 
itself by saying we are not Jews, while it would be 
hard for them to explain w^hat they are. 

ISTothing is more strenuously forbidden than 
swine's flesh, yet nothing is used by the church with 
greater impunity. No part of the law was annulled 
except the parts that were expressed in the writings 
of the prophets or apostles. Isaiah was more a 
prophet of the new law than the old, and Ave have 
not to refer to the New Testament for authority to 



114 



put awaj the Sabbath, sacrifices, incense and feasts, 
once dear to the Jews but abandoned bv us, foi 
Isaiah has told us. But what authority has he given 
us to eat swine's flesh and other forbidden meats? 
The two last chapters refer to not only the gospel 
age but the last days of it and the millennium, as 
any one can plainly see. He says: ^' A people that 
provoke me to anger continually. That eat swine's 
flesh, and broth of abominable things is- in their ves- 
sels. Which say, stand by thyself for I am holier 
than thou, these are a smoke in my nose, a fire that 
burneth all the day. For behold the Lord will come 
with fire, and T\^th his chariots like a whirh^ind, to 
render his anger T\i.tli fury, and his rebuke with 
flames of fire. P^or by fire and by his sword vrill the 
Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord 
shall be many. They that sanctify themselves and 
purify themselves in the 2:arden behind one tree in 
the midst, eating swine's flesh and the abomination, 
and the mouse shall be consumed together saith the 
Lord. For I know their thoughts; it shall come that 
I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall 
come and see my glory." As these prophecies are 
not yet fulfilled the punishm.ent of the swine eaters 
are as yet future. 

God did not make this law because he wanted to 
be arbitrar^^ and hold from man things that were 
good for him, but because they were not. All phy- 
sicians forbid their patients to eat swine's flesh. 
One of the best learned in the country told me that 
the law of eatina: was one of the proofs of the in- 
spiration of the bible, for its sanitary teaching was 
far in advance of medical science of that age, and if 
people observed it more they would enjoy better 
health and live much longer. It is said that the 
average life of a Jew is nearly a third longer than 
that of a Christian, and no other reason can be given 
than his folloT^ing the diet ordained of God. A 



115 

public clambalve was given here, and I heard that 
most of the partakers were sick next day. Christ 
sent the devils in a herd of 2,000 swine and caused 
their destruction, and the Gadarenes like many of 
to-daj, ordered him out of their country. Dr. Foot 
says the best use to employ sw^ine to is to drown 
devils. If swine is good for food, then Christ com- 
mitted a great sin in destroying so much wholesome 
food, and He who gathered up the fragments that 
nothing be lost had at once become extravagantly 
wasteful, but if the Gadarenes were wrongly keeping 
forbidden and injurious property, Christ wasi justi- 
fiable in destroying it. 

Ex-Governor Flower accumulated many millions 
by his wise investments, but when he invested in 
pork he did not make the fortune that Colonel Sel- 
lers dreamed of, for he found he had taken on a 
load that he could not unload, for his freight hand- 
lers went on a strike and all of his trusts could do 
nothing for him, and there was nothing left for him 
to do but to '' pass in his checks and go to probate.'- 
But for that unwise investment Jie might have still 
been adding to his millions. The facts are he came 
in from fishing, said he was hungry as a horse, called 
for ham and radishes, ate heartily, and was taken 
sick before he left the table and died from indiges- 
tion in a few hours. Soon after an article appeared 
in a New York newspaper against swine eating, and 
a man calling himself a doctor tried to answer it in 
"Rural New Yorker, but admitted enough against 
swine eating to upset his theory. He said it took 
longer to digest pork than other meats (4 liours). 
That the Jews lived longer than the swine eaters (a 
third), and gave as a reason that they adhered to 
Moses' bill of fare and they did not work as hard. 
I suppose he meant their digestive organst He said 
he had more calls to see peopie made sick by e,a ting- 
veal than j)oi'k. That may be. Veal is easily di- 



116 



gestecl and physics some, and is good for those who 
are troubled with costiveness; and some cannot take 
phj'sic wiliiout calling a physician; but it leaves no 
lasting effect as pork does. If it does not agree with 
YOU do not eat it. I know a man who cannot eat 
strawberries without being poisoned, but that is no 
rea-son why I should not eat them. 

If you burn a candle at both ends it will suon be 
extinguished. Will we be if we do two things at 
once? W e cannot speak, think, or move mthout 
wasting the part of the body exercised, and the 
blood, which is the body constnictor, rushes there 
to repair the loss, or at least to support it, and if 
it repaired it fully we would never tire. A drug- 
gist's scale is better to weigh grains on than a coal 
dealer's, and a weak man is a better judge of what 
exhausts than a ^iant. Beina' the fonner 1 am a 
competent judge. Tf I walk up Eitl and talk^at the 

same time I tire in half of the time that I do when 
I do but one, because I haA^e but one blood and that 
has to be divided. An athlete that wins a race will 
not speak while running. During digestion a sup- 
ply of blood is necessary to support the dige.stive 
organs, so we cannot work best during that period. 
During sleep the heaii" beats slower than when we 
labor, which gives that rest. We should eat a. light, 
easily digested supper at least an hour before re- 
tiring, then during sleep the blood will restore the 
part that wasted by the day's work. I have spent an 
evening studying a lesson and retired without being 
able to repeat a line, but in the morning before 1 
arose I could repeat a whole page, because digestion 
had ceased and all losses had been replaced and my 
menorv was perfeet. As it takes 4 hours to digest 
pork and we eat it 3 times a day, as many do, we lav 
out 12 hours' work for our digestive organs, which 
will soon wear them out. We would complain bit- 
terly if our masters kept us at work 7 days in the 



117 



week. It would be better for us to eat easily-di- 
gested food and not go to work until after digestion, 
whioh would be nearly accomplished during the 
hour's nooning. If swine eaters did that they would 
not have enougli time left to earn their hog. 

Did God forbid its eating to deprive us of a bless- 
ing, or for our good ? If the latter, you cannot blame 
him for consuming the suicides who eat it at the 
sacrifice of one-third of their lives. I know several 
who have received the spirit who have been forbid- 
den to eat it by him. This applies equally to other 
forbidden meats. 



FOURTEENTH STEP. 



Ye are God's. 



Jesus answered them : " Is it not written in your 
law, I say, ye are God's?" 

If lie called them God's unto whom the word of 
God came, and the scripture cannot be broken. — ■ 
John 10: 14-35. 

If a man called himself a God he would be treated 
as an imposter or a lunatic, yet the scripture cannot 
be broken. When we look upon frail man and the 
stupendous works of art we are inspired to say, 
" What hath God wrought? " The inventive genius 
of a nation can be measured by its faith in God. 
Some of our most useful discoveries is the result of 
a dream. A shotmaker dreamed that it rained 
shot; then he thought a drop of water formed a globe 
and hail was round; so he took some melted lead to 
the top of the church tower and poured it in a tub of 
water below and took out the finest shot he ever 
saw. Placing the eye of the sewing machine needle 
at the point was the result of a dream. 

When Edison made his first phonograph, he was 
so much surprised at the result that he doubted his 
ability to build a second. Yet these men were not 
gods, for their inventions were in the scope of hu- 
man power; but I assert with all boldness that it is 
in every man's power to be a god; yet you might 
have to rake the whole world with a drag-net to 
catch one. A god is known, not by his words but 
by his works. When John the Baptist sent to know 
if he was the Christ, he proved his godhead by the 



119 

miracles he was performing. God said to Moses: 
^^ See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh." His 
divinity he proved by bringing all the plagues on 
the Egyptians; turning daylight into pitchy dark- 
ness, dividing the sea, drawing water out of the 
flinty rock, and many others that the united power 
of the world could not accomplish. An inventor in 
a fit of ecstasy, proclaimed, '' Show me where I can 
place my prop and I will shake the world.'- He 
who will place it on the rock Christ Jesus will not 
only shake the earth but heaven also. 

Commodianus in speaking of Antechrist and the 
two last prophets, says: " The whole earth on every 
side shall tremble for seven years. The earth turns 
on its axis from west to east at the rate of about 
25,000 miles a day. Joshua caused it to stop and 
stand still for about a day. Isaiah did more. He 
not only stopped its motion but reversed it. Elijah 
called down fire from heaven, divided the Jordan, 
and did manv other things that onlv a, God could do. 
Elisha was not least among the gods. He could 
smite an army with blindness and restore their sight, 
call down fire and consume his enemies, and not 
only raise the dead, but there w^as vitality enough 
in his bones after death to bring a dead man to 
life as soon as he touched them. The three Holy 
Children were able to quench the violence of fire. 
Pollycarp, John's disciple was uninjured in a furi- 
ous fire when they tried to burn him, and John him- 
self refused to cook when they threw him into a 
caldron of boiling oil. These miracles none but a 
god could perform. The Apostles could both heal 
the sick with the word and raise the dead. I told 
you that Christ proved His divinity by His works 
and said: '^ He that believeth on me the works that 
I do shall he do also, and greater works than these 
shall he do because I go to my father." 

I said it is any man's privilege to be a god, Gor' 



120 



says: '' Behold, I make all things new." Suppose the 
world and contents were destroyed and you alone 
was left to recreate, let us see what kind of world 
you would make. Of course we will assume that 
you know more than the Creator and would produce 
a better one. You would level the mountains and 
hills, pulverize the rocks, turn the vast waste of 
water into fertile farms and make fishes grow on 
trees, and make it such a vast plain that a railroad 
could be built around it without use of pick or 
shovel. Put the precious metals and stones on the 
surface and make gold as abundant as stones so it 
would lose its value and we would have no me- 
dium of exchange. It would lose its beauty, as an 
unbroken plain would be painful to the eye. The 
landscape painter would come to grief, for when he 
drew one picture he would have it all; and where 
would the boys go to coast? When you went to 
create electricity you would find you do not know as 
much as the Creator, for it would bother you to 
make what you do not know what it is or tell what 
it is made of. When you reproduced vegetation 
you of course would leave out thorns and thistles 
and noxious Aveeds, we would have a rose without 
a thorn. But these were the result of Adam's sin 
and have been good to keep men out of mischief, for 
there is some mischief still for idle hands to do. 
You would bring back the domestic animals, as you 
would need the horse, cow, sheep, dog and fowls. 
But the cat would be superfluous, as there would be 
no rats or mice for them to catch, and the maneaters 
would be left behind. But I fail to see how the dis- 
obedient prophet or the 42 children who mocked at 
Elisha were to be punished, if it had not been for 
the lion and the bear. To go into details and re- 
late all the improvements ye gods would make 
would make my discourse tedious, but it will be the 
new earth, too grand to be conceived of or be com- 



121 

pared with this. We will go a step higher. You 
will want servants to do your bidding and run er- 
randSj of sufficient intelligence to converse and per- 
form faithful service. To fill this place the Lord 
created the angels, and it would bother jou to im- 
prove on them. Fot two reasons thej differed from 
the animal creation; they weere immortal and were 
all created of one sex, so they would have no am- 
bition but to serve their Lord. 

Then to crow^n all you would want a friend com- 
panion, a companion created after your image and 
likeness. Not your superior, lest he would reign 
over you, but a little lower, so you could keep your 
supremacy. 8th Psalm, 5th verse, E. V. reads of 
man: '' For thou hast made him but a little lower 
than God and crowned him with glory and honor.'' 
I see where you can make a grand improvement on 
God's plan of creation, who left woman for or after 
all else was created and the six days' creation was 
ended. You of course would want a wife, and in- 
stead of leaving her for the last you would create her 
as soon as you had a place to put her, and as; you are 
a god you are not subject to any law as you are a 
law unto yourself and cannot do an unholy thing. 
And as your nature calls for more than one wife you 
would make for yourself not less than King Sol- 
omon had, as you have a pride not to be outdone in 
these things. And as for your counsellors and com- 
panions you would follow the plan of the eastern 
kings, who multiply wives and make all men eu- 
nuchs to prevent jealousy as well as their getting 
your Avives away from jou. If you did not you 
w^ould not be following your own natural propensi- 
ties. You might make a mighty god to the heathens, 
for their gods had many wives and begot many chil- 
dren. In mythology we read Jupiter had many 
wives, among wliich was Juno, his own sifter, and 
had many children and w^as father of men and the 



122 



gods, but some of their goddesses were virgins, 
among which was Dianna, to whose honor the great 
temple of the Ephesus was built; also Minerva and 
Iris. To these thej bestowed the greatest honor. 
But I fear you would not be accounted worthy to 
reign with Christ. Mahommed promised his faith- 
ful followers 30 virgins for wives in the next world, 
but restricted them to the paltry number of four in 
this, while he took eight for himself. 

We will now look into the lives of the nine gods of 
the Old Testament and see if we can discover the 
secret of their power. Daniel, wlio was so tough 
that the lions could not digest him and was the most 
beloved by God, who said three times, " Thou are 
much beloved, Daniel,'' was an eunuch, as well as 
his three asbestos companions, Elijah, Elisha,, Isa- 
iah. Moses took a wife in his old age, for at 80 he 
had Jethro's daughter and two small children; so 
small that they could ride with their mother on an 
ass. When he went to deliver Israel from Egypt 
he attempted to take his wife along, which was con- 
trary to God's will, so the Lord met him and tried 
to sl^y him. So he was obliged to send her back to 
her father's housi It was after that that God said: 
'' I have made thee a god to Pharaoh;" and I guess 
we will have to leave our wives behind before we 
can be a god to anyone. 

The time had not come to teach virginity, for 
Christ had reserved that for himself, so the earlier 
scriptures are not very explicit on the subject. After 
Moses had led Israel to Sinai, Jethro came and 
brought his family, which did not resound to the 
glory of Moses. lie was not permitted to take her 
when he was with the Lord in Sinai 40 days, and 
he was not permitted to lead Israel over Jordan, 
nor were his relatives and followers permitted to 
look on or bury him when he died. But Joshua, a 
holy virgin and type of Christ, was to take from him 



123 



his power and honor who was worthy to be number- 
e(l among the gods. The prophet Jeremiah mar- 
ried when lie was but 13 years old, and had but one 
daughter, named Hamutal, who married Josiah, 
who was Judah's last righteous king, who began to 
reign when 8 years old, and his virtues may be at- 
tributed to Jeremiah's influence over him. Jere- 
miah's wife died when he was still young and the 
Lord told him not to take another. E'zekiel also 
was a widoAver. If Jonah had a wife he did not take 
her on his missionary journey, as most modern 
preachers do. I think his celebrity was the secret 
of his power. Rosea was told to take a wife of 
whoredom that he might be a sign to Israel who 
went whoring after offer gods. There is no evi- 
dence that the oilier minor prophets were married, 
but they performed no miracles. 

When (hri'St taught virginity, both by example 
and precept, the Apostolic Fathers tell us that of 
the disciples Peter w^as the only one who ever mar- 
ried, and appeared to be a widower in Christ's time, 
as his mother-in-law kept his house; and he was the 
ftrst of the twelve to embrace virginity in its full- 
nes'S, by wiiich he earned the keys to Christ's king- 
dom. Paul had a wife, Avliich caused the great strug- 
gle of Romans, seventh chapter, and 1 Cor. 9: 20. 
He finally gained the victory as he tells us, by suf- 
fering, in Col. 1 : 24-29. Now I boldly affirm that it 
cannot be proved that ever a husband or wife living 
after the flesh ever proved themselves a god by per- 
forming a miracle, even by healing the sick by the 
laying on the hands in God's name. 

The thought of a god having a carnal wife is too 
ridiculous for any thinking person to accept, unless 
he is a. heathen, whose gods agree with passions of 
fallen man. Go to all that have had the power to 
heal the sick in Christ's name during the last 20 
vears and see if the spirit has not lead to virginity. 



124 

I do not mean the so called Christian science, for 
if thej have any power they obtain it of the evil one. 
If we ever become gods we will have to regain God's 
nature, which was lost in Adam's fall. 8th Psalm, 
5th verse, R. Y. ^^.ays, '^ Thou has made him but little 
lower than god and crowned him with glory ,and 
honor." II Peter, 1 : 4, says, '^ He hath granted unto 
us his precious and exceeding great promises, that 
through these ye may become partakers of the divine 
nature (By marrying? No!), liaving excaped from 
the corruption (death) that is in the world by lust." 
The godSi are immortal, '' for," says Paul, ^' if ye 
live after the flesh ye must die; but if by the spirit 
ye make to die (marrying) the doings of the tlesh, ye 
shall live." I will now quote the 82nd Psalm to 
show what will become of your carnal gods if you 
refuse to accept these truths: ^' I said, ye are gods 
and all of you sons of the Most High. ^N'evertheless 
ye shall die like men and fall like one of the princes." 



FIFTEENTH STEP. 



Is the End of the Age and the Coming of the Lord Near? 



'' The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, it 
hasteth greatly.'- — Zeph. 1: 14. 

When Christ was asked when his coming and the 
end would come, he did not answer direct, but told 
them to get ready to meet him but not to get readj' 
to die. For when we are ready to meet Christ the 
subject of death will not trouble us, and nothing will 
stimulate us more to prepare than to tell us the com. 
ing of the Lord is at liand. Those who set a date 
nearer than seven years ahead, as Miller and many 
others have, show great ignorance of scripture, 
which plainly teaches that the two witnesses will 
come seven years before the end to seal the 144,000 
virgins, who will be translated three and a half 
years later, when Antichrist w^ill begin his rule of 
the w^orld, which will complete seven years, when the 
world will be burned, as told in this first chapter of 
Zephaniah. Those teachers who were contempor- 
aries with Christ and the Apostles taught that the 
end would come just 6,000 years from creation). I 
will quote what Gibbon in his '' Decline and Fall of 
the Roman Empire " says of the teachings of the 
early Fathers: '' The ancient and popular doctrine 
of the millenniiun was intimately connected with 
the second coming of Christ. As the works of the 
creation had been finished in six day, their duration 
in this present slate according to the tradition that 
was attributed to the prophet Elijah, was fixed to 
six thousand years, and by the same analogy it was 



126 

inferred that this long period of labor and conten- 
tion, which was now almost elapsed, would be suc- 
ceeded by a joyful Sabbath of a thousand years, and 
that Christ, with the triumphant band of the saints 
and the elect that had escaped death or who had 
been miraculously reylyed, would reign upon earth 
till the time appointed for the last general resur^ 
rection. So pleasing was this hope to the mind of 
belieyers that the New Jerusalem, the seat of the 
blissful kingdom, was quickly adorned with all the 
gayest colors of the imagination. The assurance of 
such a millennium was carefully inculcated by a 
succession of Fathers from Justin Martyr (first cen- 
tury) and Irematus (second century), who conyersed 
with the immediate disciples of the apostles, down 
to Lactantius (fourth century), who was preceptor 
to the son of Constantine. That it might not be uni- 
yersally receiyed it appears to haye been the reign- 
ing sentiment of the orthodox belieyers.'- After 
the last date he says: ^' The doctrine of Christ's reign 
upon earth was at first treated as a profound al- 
leiifory, was considered by decrees a doubtful a,nd 
useless opinion, and was at length rejected as the 
absurd inyention of heresy and fanaticism." 

Gibbon could find Fathers who liyed and wrote on 
this subject before Justin; Barnabas, a disciple of 
Christ, who I haye quoted elsewhere. Popais, a dis- 
ciple of John, says: '^ Clement (Peter's companion) 
and Penntenus. the priest of the Alexandrians, and 
the wise Ammoneus, agreed with each other who 
understood that the works of six days referred to 
Christ and the whole church.'' 

Methodius, A. D. 260, sa^^s in his Banquet of the 
Ten Virgins, '' God commanded his own sou to re- 
yeal to the prophets his own future appearance in 
the world by the flesh, in which the joy and knowl- 
edge of the spiritual eighth day should be proclaim- 
ed which should bring the remission of sins and the 



127 



resurrection and thait thereby the passions: and cor- 
ruption of men would be circumscribed. For since 
in six day God made the heavens and the eartli and 
finished the whole world and rested on the seventh 
day from all his work^ that he had made and blessed 
the seventh day and sanctified it, so by a figure in 
the seventh month has been gathered in. We are 
commanded to keep the feast of the Lord, which sig- 
nifies that when this world shall be terminated on 
the seven thousaad years, when God shall have com- 
pleted the world, he shall rejoice in us. For I also 
taking my journey and going forth from the Egypt 
of this life come first to the resurrection, v/hich is 
the true feast of tabernacles, and having set up my 
tabernacle, adorned with the fruits of virtue, on the 
first day of the resurrection, which is the day of 
judgment, celebrate with Christ the millennium of 
rest, which is called the seventh day, even the true 
Sabbath. Then again, from thence, I, a follower 
of Jesus, who has entered into the heavens, as they 
also, after the rest of the feast of tabernacles come 
into the land of promise, come into the heavens, not 
continuing to remain in tabernacles; that is, my body 
not remaining as it was before, but, after the space 
of a thousand years, changed from the human and 
corruptible form into angelic size and beauty, where 
at last we virgins, when the festival of the resur- 
rection is consummated, shall pass from the wonder- 
ful place to the tabernacle of greater and bettei 
things, ascending to the very house of God above 
the heavens.'' 

Hippolytus says: ^' Since, then, in six days God 
made all things, it follows that 6000 years must be 
fulfilled; and thev are not vet fulfilled. '' 

Loctantius, A. D. 260, says: '' At the commence- 
ment of the sacred reign that the prince of the devila 
will be bound by God. But he also when the thous- 
and years of the kingdom, this is, seven thousand 



128 

of the world, shall begin to be ended. Tvill be loosed 
afresh, and being sent forth from prison Tvill go 
forth and assemble all the nations which shall then 
be under the dominion of the righteous, that thev 
mav make war against the holv citv. and there shall 
he called tcgether from all the world an innumerable 
comj)anT of the nations, and thev shall besiege and 
suiTound the city. Then the last anger of God shall 
come tipon the nations and utterly destroy them." 

I have cojjied enough from the P'athers to «how 
that the Apostolic church taught itnanimously that 
Christ's second advent and the end of the world 
would occur at the end of the 6000 years of the 
world's age. yet 1 naye come far short of exhausting 
them on the subject, and the next question is, how 
old is the world? Our reference Bible gives the date 
of the birth of Clmst at 4004 years, and we about 
1900 years since, making 590i. which, if coiTect. 
would make us wait 96 years; but as the compiler 
of these dates made no claim of inspiration he mig*ht 
have made a mistake, so we will see if we can dis- 
cover one.. 1 Samuel. 10th chapter, tells of the 
anointing of Saul's kingdom, gives the date 1095 be- 
fore Chiist. which api^ears correct. He says Joshua 
divided the land among the tribes 1111 B. C. Judges. 
18th chajjter. This would make the time of the 
Judges from the dividino- of the land to King Saul 
350. If we turn to Acts 13: 19. the inspired apostle 
says: "He divided the laud by lot. and after that 
he gave them judges about the space of 150 years.-' 
Here we see a discrepancy of 100 years, and a close 
study of the book of Judges ^vill prove the last date 
nearly right; and if we add the 100 to the 5901 we 
have 6003. But a slight mistake in some of the 
dates has been discovered. 

I came near forgetting to add what Barbesan 
wrote on the subject, and was greatly surprised that 
so good a knowledue of astronomv was obtained so 



129 



long before the iiiveutioii of tbe telescope. I showed 
it to a professor of astronoii]y who said it was cor- 
rect. Barbesau therefore, an aged man and one 
celebrated for his knowledge of events, wrote con- 
cerning the synchronism with another of the Inmin- 
aries of heaven, speaking as follows: 

2 revolutions of Sal urn, 60 vears. 
5 revolutions of Jupiter, 60 years. 
40 revolutions of Mars. 60 years. 
60 revolutions of the Sun, 60 years. 
72 revolutions of A^enus, 60 years. 
150 revoJutions of Mercury, 60 years. 
720 revolutioQS of tbe Moon, 60 years. 

*' This,'' savs he, '' is one svnchronism of them, so 
that from hence it appears to complete 100 such 
will require 6000 years, thus: 

200 revolutions of Saturn, 6000 years. 
500 revolutions of Jupiter, 6000 years. 
4000 revolutions of Mars, 6000 years. 
6000 revolutions of the Sun, 6000 years. 
7200 revolutions of Venus, 6000 years. 
15000 revolution of Mercury, 6000 years. 
72000 revolutions of the Moon, 6000 years. 

These things did Barbesau thus compute when 
deserting, to show that this work would stand only 
6000 years. 



SIXTEENTH STEP. 



Fools. 



^^The fool hatli ^aicl in Ms heart: Xo God.^'— 53d 
Psalm. 

'^ We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in 
Christ; we are weak but ye are strong; ye are honor- 
able but are despised — 1 Cor. 4: 10. 

The world is made up of three different kinds of 
fools. 

First, the big fools. Second, the wise fools. 
Third, the Lord's fools. 

First the big fools, who say in their heart: So 
God. He does not say it with his mouth, for if you 
ask him if there is a God he mil say T\4thout hesi- 
tation, yes; but every action belies his words. God 
has implanted in every man's heart faith in a su- 
perior being and a hope and desire for something 
better beyond the grave. The idolater worships 
through his wooden god an unseen being, and hopes 
he will bring him to a heavenly home of immortality 
beyond the grave. The red man who used to hunt 
the deer and hare through these vast forests wor- 
shiped and did reverence to the Great Spirit of good 
whose abode is in heaven, whose wampum of peace 
is a bow in the sky, and believed he would take him 
to an immortal hunting ground where the paleface 
would not molest him nor game disappear. 

The Christian adores the God who created the 
heavens and earth and all they contain, and follows 
a faith that teaches them to live in bonds of friend- 



131 



ship witli all manklad and dies with hope of bliss 
beyond the grave. 

'While the big fool takes God's holy name upon 
his lips, every action belies his word. He fears no 
god nor serves none. He profanes His holy name 
and treats Him as he would not dare to treat an 
earthly ruler whose power to punish is not to be 
compared to His, forgetting that every oath is a 
prayer; prayers that they would not wish to have 
answered, yet God does sometimes answer them with 
a vengeance. Last fourth of July some men who 
had spent the day in drinking in an adjoining town 
and went to the home of one of their companions, 
who lived alone and was the most intoxicated of 
them, threw himself on his bed and was soon in 
a drunken slumber. The rest proposed to have a 
prayer meeting and prayed that the Lord would 
take home their host as they had no more use for 
him. Sometime after they went to the bed and 
found God had answered their prayer, for he wa* 
dead. They rushed out in great fright and alarmed 
the neighbors. God had only answered their prayer. 
They found to their sorrow that God does answer 
prayer, as millions of others will when it will be too 
late to take them back. You are too wise to be 
caught in the gospel trap while you are already in 
the coils of the devil's net. You boast of your lib- 
erty while you are a slave to your passions, avarice 
and pride. You forfeit the privileges of reigning 
on a throne with Christ and accept in lieu of it one 
in partnership with the devil and his eternal punish- 
ment for the sake of trying to enjoy some of the 
miseries of this present life. While you deny and 
defy the great God of love and mercy you have a 
jo^od whom you honor and adore; yes, and bow down 
to, in the very dust. He is on your mind when you 
lie down to sleep and when you wake in the morn- 
ing. You give Mni your money, your strength; yes, 



132 



and your life. Yet you are so much ashamed of 
him that you never speak of him in public. Do you 
want to know who he is? I will let Saint Paul tell 
you and to what he mil lead you. ^' Whose end is 
destruction; whose god is their belly, and whose 
giory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.'^ 
He also tells what will become of your god as well 
as its worshipers. '' Meat for the belly and the bell;y 
for meat, but God will destroy both it and them. Foi 
the body is not for fornication but for the Lord, and 
the Lord for the body." Your god will not aid you 
when you come in the great tribulation, for that kind 
of meat will not take the place of the bread of life. 
I adjure you in the name of the living God to flee 
from these things and give yourself unreservedly to 
the living God that you may be able to escape those 
things that shall come to all that dwell on the earth 
and stand before the Son of God. Do not say, I am 
unworthy, and the great theologians are pressing in 
and blocking up the way; for what Christ said to 
the chief priests and elders is as true to-day: '' Ver- 
ily I say unto you that the publicans and harlots 
go into the kingdom of God before you.'' So I say 
unto you be a fool no longer but accept the wisdom 
of the Tvise. 

The second class are those who are wise in their 
own conceit. They have graduated from their de- 
nominational college and have learned to twist the 
Bible so it fits in their creed as perfectly as does 
a duck's foot in the mud. They have their church 
history at their tongue's end and can give the his- 
tory of all their great men from Wesley, Calvin, 
Fox or Luther down to Sam Jones. But if you ask 
them about Wesley's quarrel with Whitefield and 
driving him out of London, or Calvin's persecuting 
Sei-vatus to the stake, or Fox's quarrel with Bun- 
yan, or Luther's retiring from his great work and 
becoming irritable and vulgar at the age of 40, you 



133 



will find them in blissful ignorance. I spoke of 
Ms retirement to a Lutheran minister, who made 
a great display of his learning and could read 
the New Testament in seven different languages. 
He said he had never heard of it before and sup- 
posed he had prosecuted his work until the day of 
his death, nor had he ever heard of his quarrel with 
Erasmus, his former co-worker, of which his biogra- 
pher says: ''In the vehemence of his hostility to 
the doctrine of Erasmus, Luther was led into various 
assertions of a very questionable kind, besides in 
indulging in very wild abuse of his opponent's char- 
acter;" and adds the quarrel was a very unhappy 
one. Strange! Who can tell what kinds of quar- 
rels are happy ones? The dispute grew over Eras^ 
mus saying Christ was the Son of God eternal; 
while Luther said he was the eternal Son of God. 
I do not pretend to be theologian enough to tell 
which is wrong, for to me they appear both right, 
as there is about as much difference as there is be- 
tween tweedledum and tweedledee. 

It is not my purpose to malign these men who 
have in the providence of God brought about great 
reforms, but to show what broken sticks men are to 
lean on since the mystery of perfection was lost. 
If the student will carefully study the life of Luther 
he will be able to see the stone over which he stum- 
bled and why he spent his last twenty years in idle- 
ness; but his fall was the means of bringing the 
church half way out of the pit into which it had fall- 
en. Its full restitution is just before us, but the 
wise fools think they have all of the truth and a lit- 
tle more. I lately heard a minister preach that Paul, 
if here to-day and preached as he did, would be con- 
sidered an old fogy, as in this advanced age religion 
had advanced with the times and the gospel preach- 
ed by Christ and the Apostles was not in keeping 
with the theology of to-day. I do not know but 



134 



some of the mse fools have got ahead of God, and 
mj adyice would be for them to wait and give Him 
a chance to catch up. I asked a Presbyterian min- 
ister who believed in final perseverance to explain 
to me Hebrews, 6: 1 to 8. He said the Apostle pre- 
sumed a case that could not exist. So you see they 
always have a hole to crawl out of. The colored 
preacher was telling about God's making Adam out 
of clay and stood him against the fence to dry, when 
a " brudder • ' arose in the back j^art of the room and 
asked, '' Who made de fence?" '' You shut up back 
dare or you will upset all our theology." 

If you go to one of the wise ones and tell him you 
want to learn his theology, sw^allow down all he 
chooses to feed you, like a chicken does corn, with- 
out asking any whys and wherefores, you would be 
considered very wise, but do not ask them for their 
proof nor try to teach them anything, or they will 
say: ^' The idea of your coming here to teach us," as 
I was told once down in Jersey. I was sent by the 
Lord to tell Dr. A. B. Simpson something and asked 
for fifteen minutes' conversation, and waited before 
his door a whole week, but he kept putting it off un- 
til I left him in disgust. The truth was I wanted 
to tell him somethino;, and as he knew all about the 
Bible and his Antichrist there was no room for more, 
when the poor fool did not know the way into 
Chrjst's kingdom. If I had come to learn about 
his Antichrist or how he lost the gift of healing the 
^ick he would have wasted lots of time on me. 

All of the wise ones do not fill the pulpits, or 
raiher occupy them, but you will find them in the 
Tjew and they have their creed well learned and are 
ready with an answer, but if you ask such questions 
as, Could God have saved the world without the 
sacrifice of his son? Or, how are we accountable 
for Adam's sin? Or, how are we benefitted by the 
prpss of Christ? They will say, " I will run and ask 



135 



the dominie/' and when he returns he will stay, 
*' These questions are not important, and all that is 
necessary is in the catechism." That is, where ig- 
norance is bliss it is folly to be wise, and a little 
learning is a dangerous thing; but when they find 
themselves shut out of the kingdom in the tribula- 
tion they will find that their blissful ignorance was 
folly personified. 

To these wise ones I would say get the Holy Spirit 
and put a loose rein on your creeds and .churchism 
and let the spirit of truth lead you into all truth and 
then you will know just how much truth and how 
much error there is in your church, and you will get 
a peace that is above all worldly peace; but trust in 
no man, and if anv man seemeth to be wise, let him 
become a fool that he may be wise. 

The third class are like Paul, who was a fool for 
Christ's sake. This is by far the most important 
class of fools, as they are very foolish and despised 
by the world but very much honored by God, 

A lady had a foolish son and as she had some 
strangers at dinner she told him not to say anything 
and they would not find out he was a fool. One 
said, '' Sonny, what is your name?" No answer. An- 
other, " How old are you?" Another, ^' Do you go 
to school?" Why the boy is a fool! Then he said, 
whimpering: "Its no use mother, they found out 
that I was a fool and I never said a word." 

The Lord's fools have not had better success. I 
know a Catholic who was converted and tried to 
keep his religion to himself and in a short time he 
had no religion to keep. So he started the second 
time with so much zeal that he was sure that: he 
could convert his parents, and was successful — in 
getting turned out of d'oors. 

The choice is now between the kingdom and the 
great tribulation, and the contrast is so great that 
there is no comparison between them. Nominal 



136 



Ohristianity will not save us. "We must lay aside 
every weight and we must strain every nerve for the 
fight and with a determination to get there, and 
success is certain if we do not waiver. It is now 
hardly necessary to count the cost. If we have prop- 
erty in the war w^e cannot save it from the great 
conflagration. Tradition says the rich young man 
who came to Christ and was asked to sell all and 
follow Him, lost his property when Jerusalem was 
taken and, burned. What will your mortgages be 
worth when the cities of the nations fall by the 
great earthquake and the hills and mountains cast 
into the sea, or your bank stock when the safes melt 
in the great heat. But we look for a new heaven 
and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. 
So we can afford to let the fools laugh at us for the 
time will soon come when it will be our turn to 
laugh, and then we, the sons of God, wilt shout foi 
joy, and we shall be able to keep it up for a thou- 
sand years, while those who now laugh will weep 
and lament while we rejoice, for then they will learn 
that they who laugh last laugh best. 

Prepare for a greater sacrifice than the churches 
have asked you to make, for as James says, " Hum- 
ble yourself before the mighty hand of God and He 
will lift you up;" for we cannot make any sacrifice 
for God but what he is able and willing to return a 
hundred fold. 

Let the man who would be wise remember that 
the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God, so 
what he can learn of human teachers will be to him 
of but little value, for all true spiritual wisdom 
must come from God through the spirit, and the 
fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and the 
true student will tremble at His word, while the 
wise fool who would instruct him has no great fear 
of his inferior. Bo the most important thing a man 
can learn is that he is a fool, for then he will see the 



137 



aecessity of a true teacher. The wise man says, 
" Seeih thou a man wise in his own conceit, there is 
more hope of a fool than of him." When the spirit 
led me into the most important truth I wrote my ex- 
perience to a friend, now a Ph. D., who wrote back 
he believed it a device of Satan, but when the same 
si:>irit led him into the same he wrote: '"What fools 
we are anyhow, for when we think we know some- 
thing we know nothing as we ought to know it." I 
do not apply this to you but to myself. 

I heard Rev. Stephen Merritt tell the following 
when Jie was Grand Worthy Patriarch of the Sons of 
Temperance. He was invited to give a lecture in the 
central part of the State. Two men were delegated 
to meet him at the station who did not know him, 
and as other strangers left the train they were puz- 
zled to tell which was him, so they approached one 
and asked him if he was the Grand Worthy Patri- 
arch. He said, " The grand what? What do you 
take me for? I am nothing of the kind." Then 
they approached another with the same result, while 
3Ierritt was enjoying the joke, as, he like Paul, is a 
short man of not very prepossessing appearance. 
Then they shouted, hello, when he came forward and 
they |)ut the question to him, and he said he was. 
They said: ''What! You?" Man looketh on the 
outward appearance. 



SEVENTEENTH STEP. 



The Church of Kome. 



" Thus saith the Lord, cursed in' the man that 
trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm.'' — Jer. 
IT: 5. 

The Church of Eome taught, when their church 
ruled the world, that there was no salvation outside 
of their church, feo kings would rather resign their 
crown than fall under the ban of the Pope. But 
since the reformaLion such men as George Muller, 
D. L. Moody, Whitefield, Wesley, Spurgeon, and an 
army of others, have given unmistakable evidence 
that God has not confined his blessing to the Catho- 
lic. But their ministers still teach that they are 
the original and only true church and all Protes- 
tants are guilty of heresy. Do they believe it? II 
they did, I believe what I now relate would be im- 
possible. 

After serving as priest 12 vears, Kev. James A. 
O'Connor, of 142 West 21st Street, New York, editoi 
of the Converted Catholic, became convinced of its 
error, left that church, and has for 21 years devoted 
his life to convincing Catholics of the error of the 
church. As a resalt he has taken 65 priests by the 
haiud and led them out of the Catholic church. If 
they knew that their church was the true one this 
would be impossible, for he is by no means an orator, 
but convinces by plain statement of facts. If the 
stories he tells about the priests and bishops are 
true, they are far from being saved men, and if the.y 
are not true the priests would know it and he would 



139 



have mo influence over them. But thej that he has 
brought out confirm his report. When he takes a 
priest out of the Catholic church he takes him from 
a good living (for no church feeds them as well, for 
the Catholic parsonage here is the finest and best 
kept of any in this i)lace, and the former priest 
boasted of having the fastest trotting horse in the 
town) and had nothing to give in return but the 
sure hope of salvation. I heard him say a few years 
ago that a priest had just told him he would leave 
his church if he would insure him a living. But he 
replied he had to trust the Lord for his own. 

At O'(!onnor\s^ 21st anniversary of his work he 
held a convention, where many of the converted 
priests took a part, among which was Rev. Dr. D. F. 
McFaul, who was 10 years, a Catholic priest, but was 
converted by O'Connor's ministry. I give an extract 
from his speech: " After j^ears of meditation I con- 
cluded that my soul could not fiy upward on a creed 
of forms and ceremonies, juggleries and incantations. 
I lost faith in my ability to change wafers into the 
identical flesh and wine, and water into the blood of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. I could not change these 
elements into the ' body and blood,' the ' soul and 
divinity ' of the son of God, as the Romans falsely 
teach. I lost faith in transubstantiatiom I lost 
faith in my ability to absolve the sinner from his 
sins against God. I realized that I could not save 
in being occupied Avith these accessories that the 
Church of Rome uses so much — masses and indul- 
gences, holy water, relics, etc., and I felt that the 
poor people were imposed upon and deprived of their 
monev by extortion. I felt, too, that thev received 
no adequate benefit for the money paid to me and to 
other priests for ceremonies and sacraments. My 
soul sickeuv^d at the thought of receiving money for 
dragging souls out of purgatory. It became so of- 
fensive to me that I could no longer endure to stay 



140 

amid the corruptions and abominations of the old 
church. My eldest brother promised me any amount 
of money if T vrould only stay and ' go with the 
crowd/ as he said. J had money in every x>ock6t 
then. I had horses and carriages, riches and the ap- 
probation of the people. But I thank God that in 
giving up all these things T have something much 
better — the peace of God that passes all understand- 
ing. 

" I would to God that all Catholics would leave 
their priests^ their bisliops and the Pope and come 
out on the Lord's side. Then they would give up all 
bad habits and become children of God. How much 
less drunkenness there w^ould be in the world, how 
much less would be the number of souls lost if Rom- 
an Catholics were onlj^ truly converted. Mne- 
tenths of the rumsellers are Catholics, and thev will 
not abandon their nefarious business until they be- 
come Christians. T would to God they understood 
what conversion is! I would not hesitate to promise 
a large sum of money to any Roman Catholic who 
would point to me the hour and place where he was 
converted and experienced a change of heart. I 
am not afraid I would have to pay the money, for 
unfortunately they know nothing of real conversion, 
they know nothing of redemx3tion, they know noth- 
ing of real salvation. The only conversion that they 
know, the only way to become a christian which the} 
know, is by the water of baptism being sprinkled on 
the head of an infant child. . I know by my own 
experience that although I had plenty of money as 
a priest, and everything that the world could give 
me, I had not the peace of God. I sighed by day 
and groaned by night until God spoke peace to my 
soul. I consider it idolatry when they kneel to a 
pure wafer of bread, believing the priest has power 
to change the bread into the bodv and blood of 
Christ and adore that as God. I, myself, created 



141 



God out of water and was then oblige to eat it. 
Think of a human being creating his Grod and then 
eating him. 

'' Unfortunately the habit of drinking liquor is not 
confined to the laity; the clergy also indtilge to ex- 
cess. I remember on one occasion when a bishop 
was buried, how the cYent was celebrated by the con« 
sumption of a large quantity of intoxicants. Many 
of the clergy put up at a prominent hotel, where 
there was great revelry during the night. When 
the servants cleaned out the room next morning 
there was a fearful revelation of the carousing that 
had taken place. A large number of empty bottler 
were placed outside the rooms occupied by the 
priests, and the w^aiters complained that they had 
never been so taxed in all their lives as during that 
night, carrying champagne and whiskey to theit 
clerical guests.'' 

Dr. McFraul has been a Methodist minister for 
18 yearsi 

I heard O'Connor say the priests drink to excess, 
but dO' not blame them, for they do it to smother 
the conviction that they are deceiving the people. 
While he has been taking out 65 priests from the 
Roman Catholic Church he has taken out about 10,- 

000 laymen. 

I once had the care of 30 fresh air children that 
were picked up in the streets of Xew York, most of 
which were Catholics, and found that nearly all of 
their homes were without Bibles. So I went to a 
Catholic bookstore and tried to buy Catholic Bibles 
for them. They had not a Bible in the store. So 

1 asked them to find if they could get them. I feared 
their parents w^ould take offense if 1 gave them 
Protestant ones. The bookseller doubtless consult- 
ed the priest, and when I called again they said 
there were no Catholic Bibles published but large 
ones, that cost |12 each, which was a Catholic lie, 



142 

for I ordered for myself through a Protestant book- 
seller one for |1, no better than the Bible Society 
sells for 20 cents. Then I purchased Protestant 
Bibles for them. Before the reformation it was a 
sin against the holy inquisition to be found with a 
Bible, and only a few years ago Spain imprisoned 
its subjects and banished foreign missionaries for 
circulating Bibles. 

Why do they not want their members to have 
Bibles? Because they would find that the doctrine 
of Kome contradicts the teachings of the Bible; for 
they find no pui-gatory, holy water, consecrated bur- 
ial ground, infant baptism, prayer to Mary and the 
Saint, or confessing and receiving absolution from 
the priests in the Bible. In short if they would 
get it and compare it with the teachings of theii 
church they would cease to be Catholics. Since 
Protestants circulate Bibles they allow but not en- 
courage them to buy Bibles, but sell them at a high 
price; the profit goes to the church. I am told that 
when they get one they send for the priest, whO' 
blesses it and closes it, after which they dare not 
open it. 

I asked an orphan if she prayed. She said she 
prayed to the Virgin Mary every night and morn- 
ing. I asked her if she prayed to her father. She 
said, no, for he was dead and could not hear her. 1 
told her that the Virgin Mary was dead and had 
been for 1800 years, and could not hear her any 
more than her father could, for the Bible says that 
the dead know nothing at all. 

If there is any blessing to be obtained in this or 
the future life we owe it to our mother, who is, un- 
der God, the author of our existence, for mthout her 
we could not have had an existence. But Christ 
was under no such obligation to the Virgin Mary, 
for he had a being thousands of years before she 
ever lived, and he was Divine or God, while she 



143 



was carnal^ of the seed of fallen Adanij and God 
used her to degrade the Son from the divine to the 
state of fallen man, which subjected him to the de- 
gradation of the death on the cross that he might 
teach men the way to return to God. Instead of 
her haiving any influence or power over her son she 
had to look to him for her own salvation, and never 
during his ministry did he recognize or call her 
mother, and when told that his mothel^ was without 
he said his disciples were his mother, ignoring her 
claim. After her brief life she died and was buried 
and will remain in the grave until the resurrection 
day. So who will hear or record or answer all of 
these prayers offered to her? Surely she cannot, 
and it is no better than praying to an idol. 

I have yet to learn of a Catholic who dies happy. 
Before my sister died she was so anxious to be with 
Jesus that she could hardly wait for 'her appointed 
time. She saw heaven open and Jesius with out- 
stretched arms to receive her. She chose for her 
funeral text, ^' To die is gain." Show me a Catholic 
with such an experience. When they are dying 
they send for the priest, vainly hoping they can help 
them through for which they have no Scripture. 
Cardinal Gibbon, who died in England in 1891, spent 
his last conscious breath praying for mercy, with- 
out any evidence that it was answered. Father Mc- 
Glynn died recently in Newburgh with the same ex- 
perience. Christians die happy praising the Lord. 
I visited the deathbed of an old man, and asked if 
I should pray w^ith him, but my prayer was inter- 
rupted by his shouting praises to God. He greatly 
rejoiced when he was told that he could not recover. 
Tell me of a Catholic who had such an experience. 



EIGHTEENTH STEP. 



War. 



From whence came wars and fightings among 
you? Came they not hence even of your lust that 
war in your members? — James 4: 1. 

Had man remained in his primitive state and had 
he not sinned, for which part of the punishment was 
death, death would have been an impossibility. In 
answer to the argument that men would be killed 
by accident I reply that God never met with a fatal 
accident, neither will those who fully obey and trust 
him. He who can save from the fiery furnace, the 
lion's mouth and the boiling oil, can save in any 
other emergency. They can tread on serpents, and 
if they drink any deadly thing it T\ill not hurt them. 
He will give his angels charge concerning thee, to 
keep thee in all thy ways, lest thou dash thy foot 
against a stone. They argue that God directed his 
people to exterminate their enemies by war and he 
even fought vrith them. Certainly under the old 
law, because Adam's sin reversed the human heart 
and gave man anger, enmity, hatred and strife, in 
the place of love, peace and fellowship, and God 
knew it w^as impossible for them with their fallen 
nature to love their enemies; so he gave a law that 
accorded with their nature, which was love your 
friends and hate your enemies. An eye for an eye, 
a tooth for a tooth, and life for life, which does not 
seem to be a hard law for the most ungodly to keep. 
But when Christ came he told us how we could 
change our nature or hearts so it would be as easy 



145 



to keep his law, which says: Love your enemies, do 
good to them that despitefully use and persecute 
you, love and hate not. If thine enemy hunger, feed 
him (while in w^ar they try to starve him); if he 
thirsts give him drnk (while down in Cuba they stop 
up their wells during' the hot season). 

The question i^, are the so called Christian na- 
tions living under and fulfilling the law of Moses 
or the gospel of Christ? All must agree that while 
they are Chris'^ian in name they are Jews by nature 
and precept. I firmly declare that no spiritual 
Christian can under any pertext take the life of his 
fellow, and self defence is no excuse. Christ says: 
" If any one smite thee on one cheek turn to him the 
other also." If it was not so pitiable it would be 
amusing to see how some try to carry out the letter 
without the spirit. A Quaker fulfilled the law just 
quoted and then turned on his assailant and whip- 
ped him. Another did better who captured a bur- 
glar in his house loaded with his goods and instead 
of turning him over to the law got him on his knees 
and prayed for him until he was converted, and he 
became a preacher. Another saw a little girl steal- 
ing his pears and he took her a basketful every day 
until they were gone. If they take thy coat give 
them thy cloak also. Of all the religious sects I 
know of I find the Quakers come the nearest to the 
fulfillment of Christ's teachings. What will I do if 
I am drafted? The Quakers will answer that ques- 
tion, for they have refused to fight for over 200 years, 
and if compelled to go to the front refuse to carry 
or fire a gun, and the nations finally allowed them 
to remain unmolested at home. Suppose some one 
seeks to take my life and I can prevent it by taking 
his? Do not do it, for a man who would take your 
life is not prepared to die and needs time to repent, 
while you say with Paul, I prefer to be with Christ, 
which is far better, (I am talking to 'Christians.) 



146 



But I have a vrife and family that needs my support? 
Christ can take better care of them than you can. 
So your enemy may have and you should love our 
neighbor as yourself and seek not your own but 
your neighbor^'s wealth. But some wars are neces- 
sary. Spain should have been compelled to pay for 
the blowing up of the Maine which caused the death 
of so many of our soldiers; should it not? That 
would not have been seeking your neighbor's w^ealth, 
for out of one blood God created all nations. How 
many of those who perished T\dth the Maine did 
Admiral Dewey restore to life by sinking the Span- 
ish fleet with so much human life? Do you think 
the angels before the throne rejoiced over Dewey's 
victory? Is not the man who can make the most 
widows and orphans the most honored of men? It 
reminds me of the boys who were Idlling frogs and 
said it is fun for us but it is death to you. It is sad 
to think that our whole nation from the most saint- 
ly D. D. to the lowest criminal rejoice at what they 
call a great victory, when it only means so many 
new made graves, so many new made widows and 
OT-phans, so much territory T^^"ested from one owner 
and given to another. Our nation wants Spain to 
turn over a thousand or two of its rich, productive 
islands that we have wrested from her. I think it 
is as unreasonable as it would be for a burglar to 
rob a bank and then present a bill of charg-es to 
pay him for cracking the safe. I have no doubt that 
Spain would have been glad to have sold Cuba, and 
that for much less than the war has cost, and then if 
we wished to be liberal we could have given the 
Cubans their independence and stopped the effusion 
of blood, for human life is not to be compared to 
dollars and cents; but there was too much of the 
Cain spirit to admit of anv forgiveness, forgetting 
that vengeance belongs to God. Christ said, " Fear 
not them that kill the bodv." The Christian mar- 



147 



tjrs are the only ones that will wear the triple 
crown; the called, the chosen and the faithful; called 
by water, chosen by blood, and faithful in martyr- 
dom, and will occupy the best places in Christ's 
kingdom. But none that fall in war will wear it, 
for Christ summed up the subject in one sentence: 
^^They that use the sword shall perish by the sword." 
By this he did not mean temporal, but spiritual 
death. The faith we follow teaches us to live in 
bonds of friendship with all mankind and die with 
hope of bliss beyond the ^rave. 

The history of the world is a history of war, rap- 
ine, murder and suffering. The poet truly says, 
man's inhumanity to man makes countless thous- 
ands mourn. The entire population of the globe 
would come far short of filling the places of those 
that have fallen in battle in the world's history. 
In the so called holy wars the pretended Christians 
have out done far for murder and rapine the most 
brutish savage. 

In A. D. 635 Jerusalem was besieged and cap- 
tured bv the Mohammedan, Calif Omar, who built 
on the site of the Jewish Temple the mosque of 
Omar, which remains there to-day. A portion of 
the inhabitants he compelled to pay a ransom for 
their freedom, and liberated thousands who were 
too poor to pay it, but granted life to all, and Chris- 
tians were allowed to go there on pilgrimage. In 
the closing years of the eleventh century an uncouth, 
short man, wearing a single gaimient with a huge 
cross upon his back, barehead and barefoot, was rid- 
ing an as'S through EuroDe. It was Peter the Hermit, 
who had visited the Holy Land and found the holy 
sepulcher in the hands of the infidels, and told his 
story with so much eloquence and feeling, for his 
tears were more eloquent than his words, that all 
Europe flocked' under his standard, and he got a 
decree from the Pope that all that went would be 



148 



absolved from all the sins that they had or would 
commit, and all that fell in the war AYOuld be trans- 
lated directly to glory. They all wore a red cross 
sewed on their back or shoulder. A division of the 
army of 50,000 were defeated by the Mohammedans 
long before they got there and were nearly annihi- 
lated, but there was enough left to take the city after 
they had taken Cesarea. After Jerusalem had sur- 
rendered these holy Christian warriors wearing the 
cross put 60,000 Jews and Mohammedans to the 
sword, or murdered them in cold blood. This was 
in 1099. Eighty-eight years later it again fell into 
the hands of the Mohammedans, who took it with- 
out unnecessary bloodshed and they have held it 
nearlv ever since, showins; the Mohammedans are 
more humane than the Christians. 

In less than a century after Luther freed Germany 
of the thraldom of the Pope, the Emperor tried to 
restore it by annihilating the Lutherans, for it is 
said he would rather reign over a barren waste than 
over protestantism and commenced the 30 years re^ 
ligious (?) war, in which over 10,000,000 perished, 
and at its close their population was reduced ten mil- 
lions and real estate was worth less than one-fourth 
of what it was when it commenced, and it closed 
because there was neither money nor food to carry 
it farther, as famine had visited them and men 
sought their fellow man so they could kill them and 
eat them. So they signed the peace at Westphalia 
which gave equal liberty to all, but when the in- 
fallible Pope heard of it he had not got his fill of 
blood and refused to accept it and wanted them to 
i^e-open the war. To recover the loss the Emperor 
compelled all priests to marry and allowed other 
men to take two mves each. But why repeat these 
horrors of war. If you want more read the massa- 
cre of the Hugenots of France, or of the Protestants 
in Ireland, or the Keign of Terror in Paris. 



149 



If God permits us to punish Spain, the country 
of the Holy (?) Inquisition, in which 20,000 perished 
at the stake under one man's rule, let us be careful 
that we do not do it too well, for God used the 
heathens tO' punish the Jews and afterwards punish- 
ed them for it and even punished others who rejoiced 
at their misfortunes. Afflictions must come, but 
woe unto them by w^hom they come. Peace societies 
and congresses have little influence when nations 
get angry. Wars will come. Antichrist will soon 
deluge the world in war, but let Christians stand 
aloof. During Christ's millennial reign there will 
be universal peace for the advocates of peace. But 
after the thousand years will occur the gr'eatest 
battle in the world's history. 

Kussia has led in holding a great international 
peace congress in Holland, wdiich iS' well, but let 
Russia learn a lesson for herself by living in peace 
with her own peaceful, law-abiding subjects; let her 
recall her banished Scavis, a band that lived the 
nearest to the truth as taught by Christ of any 
church on earth. Their only offence was they be- 
lieved the bible. But of f^ll Russia's inconsistencies 
the banishment of some 10,000 of its best and most 
industrious citizens, who were expelled last winter 
to come to Canada. Their only offence against the 
government was that they will not take the oath 
to go to war. They permitted them to go on con- 
ditions that tbey never return. They are called 
Dunkhobors. Here is a nation that poses before the 
nations as universal peace teachers and expels from 
its own land forever those who accept Christ's pre- 
cepts of i3eace. Are we to understand that Ras- 
sia's recent peace movement is only to disarm other 
nations so they can make them an easy prey? If 
their principles were to apply to themselves' they 
would not drive them away who accepted their own 
teachings. O, consistency, thou art a jewel. It 



150 



sounds like crying peace when there is no peace; 
but like all peace movements that is not begotten 
by the Prince of Peace. The very nations that are 
crying peace are straining every nerve to increase 
their armament. Did the United States talk about 
peace or arbitration after the Maine wa-s blown up? 
They said to the nations, " Hands off." Does France 
ask for help to settle their Dreyfus trouble? In 
times of peace it is easy to raise a cry of peace, 
but when a nation is angry they will none of it. Un- 
less peace is implanted in the soul by the Holy 
Spirit it will not avail. If we do not accept it we 
will have no part in Christ's millennial reign. Let 
us have peace. 



NINETEENTH STEP. 



Christ in Politics. 



Bender unto Caesar the things that are Caesars. 

The only part that the people had to take in poll- 
tics in Christ's day was to obey the laws and pay 
their taxes, and the words of the text referred to 
the latter only. During the 450 years of the Judges 
the people had little or nothing to say about the ap- 
pointment of their rulers, for they were selected by 
God. God also appointed their kings. But the 
throne we honor is our people's choice, says the poli- 
tician; but a republican form of government is moral 
or religious so far as the majority of the citizens are 
moral or religious, and I think a census of our na- 
tion would reveal more voters that swear than that 
pray, so we cannot be called a Christian nation, al- 
though many religious professors vote and get into 
office. But the question the Christian should ask is, 
if Christ was in my place what would He do? Be- 
member when we vote for a man he becomes our ser- 
vant and we are morally responsible for all of his of- 
ficial acts, for we have bid him God-speed, which is a 
greater responsibility than we are willing to accept. 
But who can deny the fact that those who elected the 
present government are responsible for the evils and 
casualties of the late and present war which we 
bought for twenty millions of dollars, to say nothing 
of the cost and casualties of the insurrection. What 
are Christians to do, remain at home on election 
days and let the sinners run the government? As 
long as the sinners are in the majority I think they 



152 



will run it in spite of the Christians and they might 
as well stay away as vote. Those who support the 
government are responsible for the annual deaths of 
nearly one hundred thousand that fill drunkards' 
graves. Of all of the political parties sesking power 
the Prohibitionists would give the best rule, but as 
the best men are the fewest there are not enough of 
them to make a plurality over any of the other great 
parties because people think more of their appetites 
than they do their own or neighbors' health, wealth 
or happiness. If they could vote the saloon closed 
to their neighbors and open for themselves I think 
the Prohibitionists wi/Lild get more votes. If there 
was a prospect of the Prohibitionists coming into 
powder a lot of oifice seekers would flock into the 
party w^hose highest ambition would be the spoils 
of office or big pay for little or no work, and if they 
fail to obtain it will soon leave the party. If the 
party in power has to represent a majority of the 
voters, which are sinners, the Christian does not 
want to be unequally yoked together with unbe- 
lievers. Neither is he a sojourner, but a pilgrim 
seeking a better country and would not be expected 
to try to rule the country their pilgTimage takes 
them through. Christ did not dictate to Herod what 
laws he should make, nor did He make any effort to 
get John released from his unjust imprisonment. 
Our duty is to get ourselves and neighbors to meet 
Christ at his coming and that will require all of our 
time and attention. A man that is sfoing to be a 
soldier does not entangle himself with the affairs 
of this life that he might please him that has called 
him to be a soldier. The prince of this world is the 
devil, who is now ruling through his faithful agents 
and will soon rule in person. It is well to pray for 
rulers and ^sk for them to be kept as much as pos- 
sible from Satan's power, but be mindful that the 
"^orst government the world has (^ver seen is soon to 



153 

come and the sooner the better, for then we will 
know that the day of our redemption draweth near. 
But who wants to help Sa"^an run his government? 
The Christian will not accept any political office or 
meddle with politics, but keep himself pure for 
Christ's sake; but when the w^orld is made new and 
Christ comes to reign over it he will be invited to 
share the kingdom with Him who did not die to save 
the nation but the individual. 



TWENTIETH STEP. 



Money and Keligion. 



It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a 
needle than for a rich man to enter into the king- 
dom of God— Mat. 19: 24. 

Many try to explain the text by saying there was 
a gate through the wall of Jerusalem just large 
enough to let a camel squeeze through that was 
called the needless eye; but I cannot find any such 
gate on the maps of ancient Jerusalem nor any 
authentic description of it. If there was such a 
gate then! all camels could get through and all 
rich men into the kingdom and Christ would have 
said the needle's eye instead of the eye of a needle 
and prove Christ in error when he said, " Unless a 
man forsaketh all that he hath he cannot be my 
disciple.'' We must remember the difference be- 
tween being saved and in the kingdom, which none 
but disciples can inherit. Christ said, '' Go ye into 
all the world and disciple all nations." Anyone can 
be a disciple that will pay the price. If we love our 
neighbor as ourselves we will want him to live in 
as good a house and have all the comforts of life that 
we do, and if we divided with every poor family we 
met we would soon be as poor as they. Would 
Christ hoard up money as long as heathens are dying 
in darkness for the want of means to send them the 
light? Christ did not say sell a tenth or fourth or 
half, but all that thou hast and give alms and take 
up thy cross and follow me, 

A merchant who had prospered and lived in the old 



155 

home, which was very humble, concluded he could 
afford a better one, so he built one that correspond- 
ed with his improved circumstances. When it was 
completed a neighbor said he was suited with it and 
asked him to sell it to him. He replied that he built 
it for himself and would not sell; and moved into it. 
At the first family altar he read, '' The foxes have 
holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the son of 
man hath not where to lay his head." He then said 
while the Saviour of the world was without a home 
i-s it right for me to live in such luxury? " Wife, is 
not the old house good enough?" She thought so. 
The neighbor got the house and the price went to 
help the needy. 

To illustrate, suppose John and George go to buy 
each a suit of clothes. They each have just fifty 
dollars. The merchant says he ha« suits from ten 
dollars up to fifty. Here are some royal suits for 
fifty dollars. " Have you any cheaper royal suits," 
says John. '' No, but here is an imitation for twenty 
but it is not nearly as good, will not wear and is 
easily soiled, and any one can easily deteet the dif- 
ference." '' I do mot believe in putting my last dol- 
lar in a royal robe when I can get one for thirty 
dollars less, beside Miss World expects me to take 
her to Vanity's Ball to-night and if I do not I will 
lose my suit with her, and the imitation is good 
enough for that, and to spend the night properly 
will cost ten dollars or more," says John. 

But, says George, ^' The prince has a grand re- 
ception to-morrow and all are expected to wear royal 
apparel," ^' I will be there, too," says John, " and 
I guess he cannot detect the imitation, and you 
would be a fool to beggar yourself for the reception 
while I can buy lots of vanities for the other thirty 
dollars." '' I will forego the ball for the sake of 
attending the prince's reception and will buy the 
royal robes," says George. 



156 

So John took Miss World to Vanity's Ball and 
spent the remaining thirty dollars and got so much 
intoxicated that Miss World had to get another to 
escort her home and he soiled his suit. He attempt- 
ed to attend the reception with his imitation, which 
was detected at once and he was cast into prison-, 
while George was cordially w^elcomed. The prince 
hearing of the sacrifice he made to attend was so 
well pleased with him that he made him his stew^ard. 

Jesus said unto them: "Verily, I say unto you 
that ye which have followed me, in the generation 
when the son of man shall sit in the throne of his 
glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging 
the twelve tribes of Israel." — Matt, 19: 28. 

Under the law the Jews were allowed to accumu- 
late wealth and put it to interest or usury to Gentiles 
only, as they were told to lend to their brethren 
wi.thout interest. After the Babj^lonian captivity 
the rulers exacted one per cent, interest, which dis- 
pleased God, so He visited them with famine, and 
Nehemiah sharply rebuked them and made them 
return it. — Nehemiah 5: 6-12. 

Nothing is taught in the New Testament about 
usury, as it was not necessary, for they were taught 
not to accumulate wealth. 

If a brother has money or goods that he has no 
present use for and another is in need, it is his duty 
to let him have it, but not to speculate with. If he 
does not have to pay interest he can return it sooner. 
But if a man is faithful he will not have to borrow, 
for our promise of bread and raiment is sure, and 
the Word says, " Owe no man anything, but to love 
one another." — Eom. 13: 8. 

To run in debt will check the spiritual growth of 
a person or a church. George Muller, the greatest 
faith man of the century, fed and housed over a 
thousand orphans and never borrowed a dollar. 
Most of the churches are either borrowers or lenders 



,15? 

of money on interest. Many receive bequests of 
money to be invested and the interest used. They 
ought not to receive such legacies. What will they 
do with the principal when the world burns? If it 
is WT'ong to borrow it is equally so to tempt others 
to borrow. Suppose Smith, when he commenced 
life for himself was left by a relative a sufficient sum 
of money for which he had performed no service, to 
enable him to launch out into business. Being a 
shrewd dealer and good manager and having a pru- 
dent wife and no more family he soon massed a suf- 
ficient fortune to enable him to retire from business. 
He purchased a house with some of his surplus that 
he could rent for 15 per cent, per annum of its cost. 
He is a, member of the church and pays a small per- 
cent, of his income toward its support. He rents the 
house to Jones who is a member of the same church, 
but had not all of these advantages. H^ was not 
naturally as good a manager, which was his mis- 
fortune but not his fault. He had a large family 
which to clothe, feed and educate and pay his rent 
took all of his hard earning, giving him no time for 
rest nor no hope for it this side of the grave. Smith 
stands ready each month to take his sweat money, 
for which he has no need further than to add to his 
invested horde, and considers it simpl^^ a business 
transaction involving no religious duty. If Jones 
was sick or in suffering want he would help him, 
but as long as he is able to earn the rent he sees no 
reason Avhy he should not pay it. Yet if he loved him 
as himself he would want Jones to have as much rest 
as himself and live as comfortably, and if it was 
impossible or unwarranted to bring him up where 
he was he should descend where Jones is and take 
his place in the shop or on the farm to enable him 
to get some rest. In less than 7 years or 5, if it is 
invested at the same rate of interest, Jones pays 
him the price of his house and he has nothing to do 
but to pay for it again or move out. A Christian 



15$ 

way would be for Smith to put the rent to a sinking 
fund and when he had paid him the cost of the 
house give him the deed and thus secure for him 
a home for his declining days and take the money to 
help some one else in a similar way. 

The time is near when a load of gold will not 
purchase a dinner, and it will be cast into the street's 
and none will stoop to pick it up. 

The rich Kussian, Count Tolstoi, has the correct 
opinion. He has laid aside his rich clothes and 
donned peasants' garb, and takes his place in the 
field and works mth them and has discharged the 
servants that formerly waited on him, and has given 
away most of his wealth. He was founder of the 
recent peace congress. 

Getting up entertainments to draw money from 
sinners to support churches is unchristian and un- 
scriptural. God will not accept anything from the 
sinner before the heart is given. '' Thy prayers 
and thine alms," says God. Quite a controversy 
is going on in the Christian Herald as to whether 
a church should accept money offered by a liquor 
seller. I say if the money is offered unsolicit- 
ed without specification, accept it, but tell him it 
will not purchase his salvation. Spurgeon said 
when he commenced preaching he was in need of a 
hat and asked the Lord to send the means. A miser 
called him aside and put a half crown in his hand, 
saying the Lord directed him to give. It was enough 
to get the hat. Awhile later he gave him another 
half, saving the Lord told him to give Mm a crown 
but thought a half would do, and asked him to pray 
for him that he might be cured of his covetousness. 
When he was on his death bed he crawled down 
stairs so as to die on the first floor and save the 
shilling the undertaker charged for carrying a corpse 
down stairs. In this case the Lord directed a sin- 
ner to render aid to his sei^rant and of course it 
was his duty to accept it. 



TWENTY-FIRST STEP. 



Ohristian Perfection. 



" Ye are gods. If ye call them gods unto whom 
the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be 
broken."— John 10: 34-35. 

Hark! Do I not hear you all say I have heard 
enough on that subject, give us something new? 
They all turned out to hear the new minister's first 
sermon, and remarked, '' He is smart and has given 
us a rousing sermon on repentance. If he keeps it 
up he will fill the house." The next Lord's Day thej^ 
all went to hear the next subject, but they were not 
so well pleased, for he took the same text and 
preached nearly the same sermon, and it was the 
siame the third week. Then a committee waited on 
him and asked if that w^as all the sermons he had. 
He said he had more when they were ready for them, 
but the first thing for them to do was to repent, and 
he had told them to do so three times but they had 
not done it, but when they did he would tell them 
what to do next. I propose to preach perfection 
until you are perfect, then we will change the sub- 
ject. 

Do you call it sacrilege to call men gods? If so, 
Christ taught sacrilege, for I have quoted His word^, 
and I am not afraid to preach anything I find in the 
Bible. An eminent theologian says that aifter man 
had transgressed His law^ He could have lett him to 
eternal condemnation without providing any way of 
salvation without any injustice to himself. That 
might read well in poetry but it is not true. The 



160 

sinner may have the choice of a, dozen different 
roads to go, but the perfect man has but one, and 
he is so perfectly led by the spirit that tiie way 
is always plain before him. It is so with tiie per* 
feet God. He created a perfect man to serye Him. 
Then He created the temi^ter to deceive and draw 
him away. 1 ask any intelligent person if He could 
have left him to utter destruction without providing 
any way for escape and still be a God of love ana 
mercy? Would it not be judgment without mercy, 
like many laws of sinful men? Here is a case in 
point: A murderer had bitterly repented and be- 
came a Christian and sent for the Curistian wife of 
the man he had slain that he might ask her pardon 
for the great wrong he had done, which was freely 
granted. Yet the rigorous law said he must suffer 
the death penalty. While God says of the penitent 
man: '' His sins and iniquities will I remember no 
more,-' and he is the same in God's sight as if he 
had never sinned. Here we see the contrast between 
divine and human law. The one is to the penitent, 
mercy without judgment, the other judgment with- 
out mercy. Which do you like best? The Governor 
has the power to grant to a condemned criminal 
unconditional pardon, which gives him every polit- 
ical right that he had before he broke the law. I 
now ask if God is not able to grant the same liberty 
to His penitent subjects who have once broken His 
law; oris man more merciful than God? Paul says 
in Adam all died and in Christ are all made alive. 
The question is did the resurrection through Christ 
restore what we lost in Adam? I answer much 
more. For we are not only restoied to Adam's orig- 
inal nature but much more, for Adam never w^as 
called a god, or was a partaker of the divine nature. 
Peter says: '' Whereby are given unto us exceeding 
great and precious promises; that by these ye might 
be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped 



161 



tlie corruption (death) that is in the world through 
lust." Paul says of Ohrist: ''Being in the form of 
God, thought it is not robbery to be equal with God; 
but made himself of no reputation but took upon 
him the form of a servant and Avas made in the like- 
ness of man." Christ did not humble himself to 
save men only because men were both saved and 
translated before he came and suffered, but it was 
to exalt us and enable us to partake of His divine 
nature that we might share both His holiness and 
power, or in other words, He became man that we 
could become gods. 

An eminent physician, who is not eminent for his 
piety, for he claimed to be a Unitarian, told me that 
Christ's life Avas a perfect example and if we fol- 
lowed it w^e would be saved, but we gained nothing 
by his death, and if he had ascended without dying 
he w^ould have accomplished all that he did. He 
was much nearer right than modern theologians 
give him credit of being. I told him he was right 
in saying if we follow Christ's life and teaching we 
should surely be saved and become subjects in his 
kingdom, and that is as far as the modern church 
gets, as they claim to receive a benefit from Christ's 
death and receive none, for they refuse to take part 
in his sufferings and deceive both themselves and 
their hearers, or as the Apostle says: ''Deceiving 
and being deceived." ^^hile the doctor neither de- 
ceives himself nor any one else, and I told him we 
are saved by His life and crowned kings by His 
death, if we partake of His sufferings. 

I recently heard a sermon on faith in prayer. The 
preacher said if we drew a check on a bank the 
money had to come if w^e had an account to our 
credit in the bank, and if they were unable to honor 
the check we could close the doors of the bank and 
they could do no more business. Then he assumed 
that all Christians had an inexhaustible surplus to 



162 



draw from in God's bank if they had faith, and told 
them to draw largely. Suppose I see Levi P. Mor- 
ton present a check for a thousand dollars and draw 
the money, so I make one like it only substitute m^^ 
name instead of his, would I get the money or a 
protest? They would say you have no credit here 
so we had to protest, as you must deposit before 
you can draw. So I say I lacked faith and now 1 
am going to believe I have a credit there and exer- 
cise a great deal of faith nothwithstanding the facts 
of the case. My faith would avail me nothing, for 
" faith is dead without works." Then I make another 
check and put Morton's name on it saying then 1 
will surely get the money for he has unlimited credit. 
But instead of the monev I ©eat a warrant of arrest 
for forgery. Will those who presume to draw on 
Christ's righteousness succeed better? A man who 
believed in faith prayed for the Lord to take a neigh- 
bor who had offended him out of his way that night, 
but there must have been a slight doubt in his mind, 
for he went the next morning to see if he was yet 
living, and the facts did not increase his faith, for 
he was not as successful as the drunken sinners 
were. 

Suppose then as I find a deposit must be made, 1 
deposit one hundred dollars and draw a check for 
a thousands, would I be more successful? Tliey 
would tell me if I wished to draw largely I must 
deposit largely. Yet many work or try to work the 
Lord's bank on that plan, and are like the man who 
dropped a nickel in the contribution box and took 
out a dime in the way of change. Some have been 
able to draw large sums without making any de- 
posit, like Baker and Seeley did on the Shoe and 
Leather Bank, but they generally come to grief, as 
they did. But that game never worked with the 
Lord's bank, for He employs none but honest book- 
keepers who, like Caesar's wife, is above Siuspicion, 



163 



But the trouble is the average ehurchmember re- 
fuses to make any deposit in the Lord's bank. I 
just asked a lady who strains at a gnat in some' mat- 
ters and spoke reprovingly, too, because I followed 
the Bible too closely, if she ever gave up anything 
in her whole life that was a sacrifice, for Christ's 
sake, and she was unable to answer. She said she 
had asked the Lord to tell her if it was His will 
to give up certain things that were forbidden in the 
Bible but got no answer, but refuses to seek the 
indwelling Comforter that would teach her the very 
thing she asks a,nd refuses to follow the teachings 
she receives. 

(^ne night last fall sh^ dreamed she was trying to 
kill a very fat, but not very long, snake, with a 
stick; it had two heads and I was trying to hold it 
for her, but if I held one head it would hiss at me 
with the other, while she pounded it with a stick. 
She had an iron in her hand and thought if she got 
that on it she could kill it, but did not then. I 
tried to hold it by the tail, Ibut it got away, but got 
very lean and small by the whipping. But the first 
thing she did when she got up was to give it a fat 
breakfast. The snake was her passionate disposi- 
tion. I had come home late the night before with a 
wagon after a long drive with some goods to be un- 
loaded in the house, so I left the wagon in the front 
yard, which was against her orders, expecting to 
draw it to the side of the house, where we kept it, 
before she went out; but she went out first and in- 
stead of putting it where it belonged, which would 
have been as easy, she ran it in the middle of the 
street and said I left it there out of spite. I told 
her I did not, but asked if she did not run it in the 
street out of spite. She said, yes. I was mad. I 
told her the meaning of her dream and said a clean 
heart was better than a clean dooryard, and fighting 
the snake was keeping down of passion, and the 



164 

iron that would have killed it was her iron will, for 
she is one of those who when she makes up her mind 
to do a thing, does it, but did not decide to kill fhe 
snake, but could make it small by keeping it io 
check, when her husband pitched in and took her 
part and hissed at me when I found where the other 
head was. I think she has fed the snake oftener 
than she has whipped it, since it has not beeo re- 
duced in size. The business man who would draw a 
bank check must deposit largely and keep a large 
surplus on the credit side; such a man is sure -"o suc- 
ceed. It is so Avith our dealings with the Lord. It 
was to the Disciples that he said, ^' Ask anything 
in my name and I will do it," and they left nil to 
follow him. His last words to them were, " Go ye 
therefore and make disciples of all nations," bu+ He 
is not saying that now to us, but He is saying, 
^' make disciples of yourselves." Let us get the 
beam out of our own eyes first. Since we are re- 
quired to disciple all nations, as well as ourselves, 
let us see what deposits in the Lord's bank are re- 
quired to draw from. Christ said, '^ Whosoevei 
doth not bear his own cross and come after me can- 
not be my disciple;" let us make a deposit of that, 
but we will not find much imputed righteousness in 
it. Again, ^' So likewise whosoever he be of you 
that renounces not all that he Tiath, cannot be my 
disciple." You say it costs too much. Yes, it costs 
somethiujo' to deposit in the Lord's bank as well as 
it does in a National bank, but the former will be 
of very much more service when the world is on 
fire, for we shall not be able to hire firemen to px- 
tinj2fuish the flames with the latter because of th^.' 
scarcity of water. Christ required three things of 
the rich vouno; man to make him perfect. First, to 
rpII nil that he hnd and Q'ive alms; second, to take 
ur> his cross: third, to follow him. I heard a color- 
ed minister tell his people that Christ would not al- 



165 

low him to part with his property, but only asked 
it to try him; but I l^hink He was in the habit of 
saying what He meant. History says his property 
was consumed w'hen Jerusalem was burned a few 
years later and he went into captivity. So he lost 
both his property, liberty and Christ's kingdom, as 
I fear many will in this age. But the wise will de- 
posit in Christ's never-failing bank. Again Christ 
says, " If any man cometh unto me and hateth not 
his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, 
and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life, else 
also he cannot be my disciple." 

I have heard ministers try to explain this away, 
but it reads the same as it did before. The truth is 
what the world calls love is the reverse of Christ's 
love, and is summed up in what I heard a prattling 
child tell her mother, " I love you tause you love 
me;" and the w^orld is ready to add, " I hate you be- 
cause you hate he." None would bestow love upon 
another unless he though he could get it returned 
with interest, and when they find no return their 
love is turned to hate and friendship ends. What 
wife will not testify to a lie to screen her guilty hus- 
band, unless she finds someone that suits her better 
and sues for a divorce, and then she can lie as com- 
fortable on the other side. I might enlarge on this 
subject, but not now. How different is christian 
love that goes out for its enemies and knows no dif- 
ference. 

I was once talking to a convert on the necessity 
of forgiveness. S'he said she never would forgive a 
man, who was a helpless cripple, for he had deeply 
wronged her, and I need not ask it. A few day^ 
later we were in a meeting where the Spirit was do- 
ing his Avork, and as soon as an opportunity was of- 
fered she rushed to the cripple and urged him to give 
himself to the Lord and be 'healed, and had forgot- 
ten her enmity. It is as impossible for the natural 



166 



man to love his enemies as it is for the spiritual to 
hate his. The heart that knows no love cannot 
love and' the heart that knows no hatred cannot 
hate. The truly spiritual man can only see the nev- 
er dying soul, while the natural can only see the 
body, and they that are Christ's have crucified the 
flesh w^ith its passions and lusts. So let us become 
Christians and lay all narrow, selfish affections on 
His altar, and let Him in return give us that broad, 
deep and lofty affection that knows no end and will 
carry us above all of the fiery trials of this world, 
and receive the 'holy spirit and follow Him until He 
leads us unto Godly perfection and perfect love that 
casteth out all fear and makes us never dying, God^s, 
and ready to be received w^hen He comes to take up 
His elect that are to escape the tribulation, and 
stand before the Son of Man. Even so come Lord 
Jesus, Amen. 



TWENTY-SECOND STEP. 



Good Will to Mien. 



" For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even 
in this; thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 
But if ye hate and devour one another, take heed 
that ye be not consumed one of another;" Gal. 5, 
13-14. 

I quote a striking little narrative poem credited to 
Hunt, containing more truth than fiction. 
'' Abou Ben Adhem — may his tribe increase — 
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace. 
And saw, within the moonlight in his room. 
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom. 
An angel writing in a book of gold. 
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold. 
And to the presence in the room he said: 
" What writest thou? " The vision raised his head 
And with a look made of all sweet accord. 
Answered: '' The names of those who love tlie Lord." 
" And is mine one? " said, Abou. '' Nay, not so," 
Eeplied the angel. Abou spoke more low 
But cheerily still, and said, '' I pray thee, then. 
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." 
The angel wrote and vanis'hed. The next night 
He came again with a great wakening light 
And showed the names whom love of God had blest. 
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest." 

When we read the law that God gave to Moses 
and consider the hard and we might say unmerciful 
judgments in it, and contrast it with the affection- 
ate teachings of Christ, we are apt to look at the 



168 



Father as an austere and merciless judge, incapable 
of love or kindness; while Christ's law of loving pre- 
cept indicates a nature of the other extreme, or the 
embodiment of love and mercy. This is very far 
from the truth, for the two are one in nature and 
the love of the Father cannot be surpassed by the 
Son; and He who said an eye for an eye and a tooth 
for a tooth, and life for life, and said slay your 
enemies, also said love your enemy and if he smite 
thee on one cheek turn the other also. God showed 
as much love and mercy in giving the moral law as 
he did in Christ's gospel; for the nature of the sin 
brought into the world by Adam's sin was such as 
to harden man's heart, so it was impossible for him 
to love his enemies or to do good to his persecutor. 
So if God had given the gospel to them before they 
had received softening power of the Holy Spirit, it 
would have been impossible for them to have kept 
it, and no one could have been saved, and would 
have been unjust to require an impossibility; while 
the hard law given to Moses was in accord with 
their hard hearts and made them who obeyed it fit 
subjects to Christ's kingdom. 

The result of man's fall is illustrated in the 
world's history, which is a record of enemity, hatred, 
arson and bloodshed, and the country whose history 
mostly abounds in them we call the most interest- 
ing, and the history of the country that runs like 
this: "The faith we follow teaches us to live in 
bonds of friendship with all mankind and die in 
hope of bliss beyond the grave," w^ould be too slow 
for the modern reader. A minister in speaking of 
the horrors of war said- " If the inhabitants of the 
globe were smitten instantly there would not be as 
many dead unburied as have fallen in war; and the 
greatest hero has been him who could paint the 
towm reddest with the blood of its citizens." When 
|ve pick up the paper we 3kip the religious news in 



169 



our eagerness to absorb each line and word of some 
bloodcurdling murder. 

The angels that ushered in the Prince of Peace 
with '' Peace on earth and good will to men," 
brought in a new state of things and while Christ 
taught peace he sent the spirit to make it not only 
passable but natural for us to carry it out, and as 
a result we have in the New Testament the most 
loving and peaceable book that the world ever pro- 
duced, which shows His power to transform a fiend 
into a friend, as in the case of Paul. 

We cannot cultivate a spirit of love for it is God- 
given, and if the spirit 'has not planted it in our 
hearts all love service is vain, " for if I bestow all 
my goods to feed the poor and give my body to be 
burned and have not love, it profiteth me nothing,'' 
says the Apostle. 

When the Spirit was driven from the church in 
the fourth century, brotherly love took its flight with 
it. Constantine wrote loving epistles to the con- 
tending factions in the church, exhorting them to 
peace and unity, but to no purpose, for it was crying 
peace when there was no peace, and the "r" in friend 
was again dropped and those who called themselves 
christians took on the nature of wild beasts The 
Reformation brought in a slight improvement foe sl 
time, but soon Protestantism became divided and 
hatred and discord reigned and brotherly love did 
not extend beyond its denomination, and now one 
minister is ready to war with another that comes 
on what he calls '' his field " to get converts. I 
know^ a case where a sect had a small organized 
church, but no house, but held meeting in a school 
house, and when no meetings had been held there 
for six months, another minister went and had a re- 
vival and organized a little church, which offended 
the minister who had de'serted the field, virtually 
admitting that they would rather have the sinners 



170 



lost than have another sect save them. This case 
is one of many which might be mentioned, but I am 
happy to say that sectarian prejudice is fast giving 
way to a better spirit of brotherly love and unity 
and the way is opening for the great events that are 
before us. Many have tried to act out the nature 
of love without the spirit and do it physically, like 
the Quaker who was smitten on one cheek turned 
the other and when he received a blow on that turn 
ed upon his assailent and gave him a whipping, 
doubtless with much better grace than he received 
the blow, which did not manifest much long-suffer- 
ing, wiiich is the fruit of the spirit; for the fruits of 
the spirit are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kind- 
ness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and temper- 
ance. Now if any one has the spirit these fruits 
will be manifest. I have known many who make 
their boast f the spirit, but failed to produce any 
of its fruit and were ready to persecute any one 
who believed more of the Bible than they did. 1 
have learned the hollowness of human friendship. 
A minister without work or money who was shut up 
in a distant city with a family without means of get- 
ting away, for whom I furnished the means of get- 
ting on a field where he could get support, turned 
against me and refused to do the least favor or give 
any reason for his lack of brotherhood. I have 
known them that made a profession of perfection 
and advertised themselves as Holiness Evangelists 
and had rare spiritual gifts, become bitter perse- 
enters against even members of their own church, 
^md accepted their teaching because the spirit had 
led them a step beyond them, which was in accord 
with His word. 1 know a case where one was il- 
legally and unconstitutionally imprisoned over a 
year for accepting some of the plain teachings of 
Christ, and vainly pleaded with his Holiness breth- 



171 

ten (?) for aid when they could have easily have ef- 
fected his release. 

One of the most unbrotherly persecuting and un- 
christian letters that I ever received was from a 
man that signed himself Holiness Evangelist, be- 
cause I sent him my book which reveals the way in- 
to the kingdom. I answered, sending stamp, and 
asked some questions and to return the book, but 
got neither book nor reply. Even Luther, Calvin, 
Fox and Wesley are numbered with the persecutersw 

It is all because, as I said, we cannot love without 
the spirit of love and those that have claimed Him 
have so trammeled Him with their human creeds 
and teachings that He had no liberty and was driv- 
en out. 

Many lose Him by refusing to obey, and others 
fail to get Him for the same reason, which is the 
sin against the Holy Ghost, for if we refuse to obey 
Him it is needless for Him to remain or return, as 
we would not obey the second time better than the 
first. He not only comes to dwell, but knocks to 
show what is in the way. I just heard an evange- 
list tell the following- '^ A minister was assisting 
another in meetings. He had never received the 
spirit which he was seeking and prayed with such 
power and earnestness as to call the attention of all 
present, when he suddenly ceased and told the pas- 
tor that he almost got him, and it was shown him 
that one thing more had to be given up; but he 
would not and left the house a sad, Godforsaken man 
and went back into the world." I was sent to a suc- 
cessful Holiness minister with a message calling for 
a sacrifice, but he refused to make it and left his 
charge and is now working on a farm. 

Christ said: ''It has been said thou shait love 
thy neighbor and hate thine enemy, but I say love 
your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good 
to them that hate you and pray for them which de- 



172 



spitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may 
be the children of your Father which is in hearen/' 
This can only be done when our hearts are softened 
by the spirit of love. John said, '' If a man say I 
love God and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for if 
he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, 
how can he love God whom he hath not seen, fie 
who loveth God loveth his brother also." 

Last summer I heard a paper read on the teach- 
ings of Christ, which showed that we must not de- 
fend ourselves against the blows of an enemy. In 
a debate which followed, they said when we saw one 
beating a weaker person it was our duty to assist 
him overcome the stronger. But I do not read my 
Bible so. It is our duty to step between and receive 
the blow aimed at the other and allow the assailed 
to escape and plead with the aggressor, as his soul 
is worth more than our bodies. 

A Quaker caught a burglar in his hotise and in- 
stead of turning him over to the officer to be pun- 
ished, he knelt down with him and prayed and 
pleaded with him until he was converted and he be- 
came a preacher of the gospel. I once assisted in 
capturing two bui'giars who broke into a minister's 
house, who were sent to prison. A year later the 
minister received a penitent letter from one, a young 
man, begging him to petition for his release, but 1 
think no notice was taken of it further than to read 
it from his pulpit. 

Pardon coming from the heart is the strongest 
weapon we can tise upon an enemy, but it is one of 
the scarcest commodities in the market because ot 
the scarcity of the Holy Spirit, the only attribute of 
love, while the Lord is desirous to bestow Him free- 
ly upon us all; without whom we can never come in 
His presence, nor love Him or our fellow man. 

The purpose of this sermon is to show from an- 
other standpoint the importance of seeking and ob- 



m 



taining after our conyersion the Holy Spirit, with- 
out which we cannot, 1st, belong to Christ; 2d, be 
admitted to His presence; 3d, become a son of God; 
4th, become a joint heir and brother of Christ; 5th, 
escape the great tribulation; 6th, love God nor man; 
7th, dwell in the New Jerusalem; 8th, be taught the 
mysteries of His glorious kingdom; 9th, be translat- 
ed to God without lasting death; 10th, escape the 
tribulation at the end of the millennum in which 
most of those that are saved in this age will fall 
away. So let us first of all things seek the kingdom 
and righteousness of God that can only be obtained 
through His spirit; and with it ^e shall have peace 
that surpasses all understanding. 

The story of love and hatred may be summed up 
in few words. When God created Adam he put in 
him a heart that was all love and incapable of hat- 
red. But his first sin reversed his heart and whole 
nature, so he became a slave to hatred and incapa- 
ble of love; so the moral law was given which be- 
came his nature and no change was possible until 
the heart was reversed or changed back. This 
Christ taught us how to do, and His teachings were 
followed for 300 years, when the knowledge of ob- 
taining a loving heart was lost and it is impossible 
to live a loving life without obtaining a loving heart, 
and that can only be done in the way Olirist pre- 
scribed, which none of us follow, so you see why we 
have all failed. 



TWENTY-THIRD STEP. 



Martin Luther. 



'■ Ye did run well." 

Xo one of this generation knows aught of Luther 
except what he has read, and no one can ^lite past 
bistorv but he who has read history. It is told of 
Alexander the Great that when one came to him 
with a complaint he would stop one ear so he would 
have one unbiased to hear the other side of the case. 
1 have read five biographical sketches of Luther, 
but unfortunately they were all written by friendly 
hands, so I am not well prepared to write an un- 
biased history, for a mans friends T^dll tell of his 
virtues and his enemies his vices. And too, mv 
mother lived and died a Lutheran, and no one would 
wantonly assail the religion of his mother. 

It is not my purpose to give a full history of the 
man who produced an epoch in the religious world 
by, in the darkest ages of our history, breaking the 
galling papal chain that encircled the world and 
letting Germany go free, and kindling a flame of 
religious liberty that shot its beams over the earth. 
I could not tell the half in the space given for a 
single sermon. Xo man since the apostolic age has 
achieved so much for God and the church as Martin 
Luther. 

It is not my purpose to erect a literary monument 
to the memory of the great man, for the world has 
repeatedly done that, but to bring to light for the 
benefit of the Christian public some important items 



175 

in hisi history, of which the general public as well 
as members of his own church are ignorant. 

When God has a work to do he raises up a man 
to dio it, and I will brieflj show^ the work that Luther 
was required to do and how very well he did it. 
When God first made man he (Seated him with an 
immortal nature that was incapable of hatred, and 
had he so remained discord, wars and fighting would 
have been unknown to the world, for it would have 
been impossible for lovers to quarrel or immortal 
men to kill each other. But Adam's first sin changed 
all of this and turned the friend into a fiend and im- 
mortality to death. But what the sin was that did all 
of this is a subject on which the modern churches are 
silent. But not so with Luther, for he saj^s, " None 
of the Fathers of the church before Augustine maae 
mention of original sin, namely, that original sin is 
in covet lust and desire, which is the root and cause 
of actual sin.-' This he correctly confirms in several 
places in his '' Table Talk." In one place he says, 
^' It is to the regenerated a running sore and remains 
in Christians until they die, and God made marriage 
for a plaster for the sore.'' That while God drove 
Adam out of Paradise for no other crime than con- 
tracting a carnal mania ge, He has so much been 
reconciled to carnal men to look with impunity on 
Adam's sin that He will now^ take men from the 
marriage bed to Paradise, or while Adam was driven 
out for taking one wife, men can now with impunity 
take in succession from one to four or five. White- 
field called the minister who was living with his 
fifth wife the much married man. All of this from 
Luther is a strange mixture of truth and error. His 
mauy quotations from the Apostolic Fathers proves 
him to be ignorant of the writings of most of them, 
8s I believe most of their writings were concealed in 
his day in the monasteries, where they have since 
been found. He is in error in saying Augustine was 



176 



the first who treated on original sin. He died A. D. 
430. I have not his writings but do not dispute his 
statement. But Tertullian, who wrote 250 years be- 
fore, siays, in comparing Adam with Christ, '' The 
last Adam (that is Christ) was entirely unwedded as 
was even the first Adam before his exile from Parar 
dise.'- I will not here try to prove the fall as I have 
not the time, but will leave it for a future sermon, 
but simply assert that satan the serpent lusted after 
Eve and humbled her w^hen she tempted Adam. 

Ignatius, who lived in the first century and is said 
to be one of the little children who Christ blessed, 
said in his address to Satan: '^ By thy belly or by 
thine appetite thou wast overcome." Justin, the 
martyr, who lived in the fii'st part of the second cen- 
tury, says the prince called the serpent fell with, a 
great overthrow because he deceived Eve. " VictOi^- 
inus says, " Who that is the law of God that is filled 
with the Holy Spirit does not see in his heart that 
on the same day of the week on which the dragon 
seduced Eve the angel Gabriel brought the glad 
tidings to the Virgin Mary and Christ suffered oii 
the same day that Adam fell.'' Gibbon's '' Decline 
and Fall " says, '^ The chaste severity of the Fathers 
in whatever related tO' the commerce of the two 
sexes flowed from the saime principle; their abhor- 
ance of every enjoymnt Avhich might griatify the sex- 
ual and degrade the spiritual nature of man. It was 
their favorite opinion that if Adam had preserved 
his obedience to the Creator he would have lived 
forever in a state of virgin purity and some harmless 
mode might have peopled Paradise with a race of 
innocent and immortal beings. The use of marriage 
was jjermitted only to his fallen posterity as a neces- 
sary expedient to continue the human specie and as 
a restraint, however imperfect, on the natural licen- 
tiousness of desire." 

So we find that God drove Adam out of Paradise 



177 



for contracting a mamage, but permitted' him to 
live still in the world, but hid his face from car'nal 
man but permitted him to still dwell upon the earth, 
with a promise that he would in the future have the 
chance of redeeming Paradise, which will be at the 
close of the millennium. So Moses' law was found- 
ed on marriage, which will give them that obeyed 
it a place on the earth asi subjects in Christ's king- 
dom but not in the heavenly JeTusalem. These will 
have no part in the first resurrection, which will 
occur 3^ years before the second or end of the age. 

Christ came to bring in a new order of things by 
teaching that the kingdom and crown belonged to 
the virgins, and tauglit that it could only be obtained 
by suffering. (See Romans 8: 10-17; Hebrews 12: 
1-17; I St Peter 4: 1-4 and 5: 10; and II Tim. 2: 12, 
and many others). After the church had remained 
faithful for 300 years they tried to steal a ma,rch on 
the Saviour, w^hich was by teaching virginity with- 
out suffering, or their way instead of Christ's, so 
they neither healed the sore nor applied the plaster 
?nd so fell short of both the gospel and the law. 

After this long seeming digression I will now re- 
turn to Luther and see what he did to correct the 
error. I will not trouble you with a lengthy de- 
^^cription of his birth and education. Hisi parents 
expected to make a lawyer of him and he was educa- 
ted for it, but in the midst of it his friend and com- 
panion was stricken dow^n b}^ his side by a stroke 
of lightning, which entirely changed his plans and 
caused him to go into ai monastery, where he volun- 
tarily took a vow of celibacy, and where at the age 
of 20 found the first Bible he had ever heard of, sup- 
posing that all the scripture was contained in the 
pray-er book and catechism. A close study of this 
revealed to him the errors of the church. He was 
ordained priest in 1507 but did not attack the errors 
of the church iintil 1517, when John Tetzel com- 



178 



menced to sell indulgences to raise money to enaible 
the Pope to build St. Peter^s Church. Every pos- 
sible effort was made to compel him to recant but 
to no purpose. He was filled with that zeal for God 
and courage that the Holy Spirit only can impart. 
He was summoned to appear before the Pope's le- 
gate and the Emperor at the diet of Worms. His 
friends tried to persuade him not to go or they would 
burn him as they had his books recently. He re- 
plied that he would go if they set as, many devils; on 
him as there were tiles on the roofs of the houses. 
His ambition was to go and tell the true story of the 
gospel to the ministers there. The only thing that 
saved his life was his drawing nearly all of Germany 
and the most powerful princes on his side. He was 
before this summoned to meet the Pope's legate at 
Augsburg, but his effort to get him to recant was 
futile. He said he would not agTee to arrest Luther 
with 10,000 soldiers, for where the Pope had one on 
his side Luther had ten. Duke George was his bit- 
terest enemy and his friends advised him to keep 
from Leipzig, for if Duke George got hold of him 
he would not get away. He replied, '' If I had busi- 
ness at Leipzig I would ride there if it rained Duke 
Georges for nine days running." Luther w^as per- 
mitted to return from Worms, but was arrested by 
his Mends and taken to a, place of concealment 
where he remained ten months, during which he 
translated the Nevx^ Testament into German, w^hich 
Is called the best translation made in any language, 
for the decree of the diet was that his books should 
be burned and no one should aid him in any way and 
he should be arrested and delivered to the Catholic 
authorities. After the ten month's concealment he 
again appeared in public in Wurtemburg, but his 
party was so strong that no one after dared to put 
the decree of the council in execution. 

Luther emerged from his concealment in 1522, aud 



179 



as far as Luther was concerned the work of the re- 
formation was completed, and it had been accom- 
plished in five years. The papal chain was broken 
end Germany Avas free. His publisher called him 
the third and last Elijah, w^ho is to come just before 
Christ's second advent and restore toi the church the 
Apostolic faith and practice; but in this of course 
he was in error. 

The next three years of his life is not so glorious, 
and brings him to the third period of his life, ac- 
cording to Bunsen, his biographer, who divides his 
life into three periods. First, tO' 1517, which he 
calls the preparation, w^hich extends to his* 34th year. 
Second, the period of progressive action to 1525. 
While he wrote some books during these three years 
that might have been useful, he used every means 
in his powder to persuade the Nuns, w^ho were under 
the sacred vow of celibacv, to break their solemn 
vow. Nine nuns escaped in 1523 and came to him 
for protection. The next year he threw off his 
monastic habit, and the next, 1525, at the age of 42 
married Catherine Yon Bora, who w^as 20. He had 
taken the vow^ of celibacy when he entered the mon- 
astery and repeated it when he was ordained priest 
God, w^ho cannot lie, cannot look upon any one with 
au}^ degree of allow^ance, and if God's word is true 
a vow^ of celibacy if sacredly kept is precious with 
God, who says, '' They who shall be accounted wor- 
thy to obtain that world and the resnrrection from 
the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage." 
The ten that went to meet the bridegroom were vir- 
gins. One who was asked to the marriage supper 
said I have married a wife therefore I cannot come. 
The 144,000 who have part in the first resurrection 
will be virgins. Clement, Peter's companion, says 
in his epistle to virgins: '' God will give to virgins 
the kingdom of heaven by reason of his great and 
noble profession," Even Luther says: " A preacher 



180 



OJ: the gospel ought above all things first to purifj' 
himself before he teaches others. Is he able with 
a good conscience to remain unmarried let him so 
remain." He had broken his vow after holding it 
s^icred until he was 42, would it not have been very 
much better to have continued the fight until the 
end? He says, '' I have yet to learn by experience 
that any one married for the sole purpose of beget- 
ting children to rear in the fear of the Lord." 

We have now come to the third period of his life, 
which was from 1525 to 1546, or 21 years, which the 
biograi^her calls the period of stagnation. I wa^s 
surprised to find a well educated Lutheran minister 
who could read the testament in seven languages 
and was ignorant of such a period. The truth is, 
^\hen he broke his vow God took the Holy Spirit 
from him and his whole nature changed. Erasmus, 
the most learned and popular man in Germany, join- 
ed the Protestants but could not agree with Luther 
in his doctrine of election, who held that we were 
mere machines who could do nothino- to gain our 
salvation, forgetting that God said, '' Whosoever will 
may come." So any one who is not included in God's 
"whosoever" may be accounted rejected. His friends 
tried to bring him into Luther's i^arty, as they said 
if he did he would bring all of Germany with him. 
Erasmus had made many enemies by defending him 
and. wrote him friendly letters and called him a 
great man and said he had learned more from out 
short page of Luther than from all the large books 
of Aquinas. He finally wi^ote a refutation of Luth- 
er's election views in favor of Freewill, but in a 
perfectly friendly manner, making no personal allu- 
sions. Luther's friend, IMelancthon, promised Eras- 
mus that Luther would answer him with civility and 
moderation, for Erasmus said in his preface: ''You 
ought not to take this differing in opinion ill because 
I have allowed you the libei'ty to differ from Popes, 



181 



Oardinals, UniveTsities and Councils of the Church.'' 
But like King Saul, the spirit of the Lord and de- 
parted from him and an evil spirit had taken posses- 
sion of him, and as he had broken his promise it wa& 
not reasonable that he should verify Melancthon's.. 
His answer was a tissue of personal abuse and false^ 
hood without trying to refute his arguments, and 
nothing after that was too bad for him to say or do 
against Erasmus. He calls him the vilest miscreant 
that ever disgraced the earth, and says that in 1525 
(tbe ,year the quarrel began) he sent 200 ducats as 
a present to my wife but I refused to accept them. 
He was always poor and begged for even his minis- 
lerial robes. He calls him accursed wretch and say& 
whenever I pray 1 pray for a curse upon Erasmus, 
foraettino" God says '' bless and curse not." 

We will now see the immediate effect of his mar- 
iiage, for the loss of the spirit would have produced 
immediate effect. He says he married in haste. 
His memoir by Alexander Chalmers says he was for 
some time ashamed of himself and owned that his 
marriage had made him so des'pieable that he hoped 
his humiliation would rejoice the angels and vex the 
devil. But the devil does not set vexed that way. 
Melancthon found him so afflicted with what he had 
done tJiat he wrote some letters of consolation to 
liiiu. Then he tries to lay the blame on God, who 
he said commanded it, and wrote to justify himself, 
but he was not himself satisfied with these reasons. 
1T(^ did not think the step he had taken could be 
justified on the principles of human prudence, and 
we find him in other places endeavorinof to account 
for it from supernatural standpoints. The wise men 
are greatly perplexed. Does any one believe that 
God, who says in the 15th Psalm, ^' Who shall stand 
on thy holy mount? He who swareth to his own 
heart and changeth not. He that doeth thefee things 
shall never be inoved;" will He command one to 



182 



break his vow? We ^ill let Luther condemn him- 
self. He sajs in Table Talk that sin brings> fear of 
death. Two vears after his marriao-e he was taken 
yery sick, and recoyering a little applied himself 
to prayer, made a confession of faith, and lamented 
grieyously his unworthiness of martyrdom which he 
had so often and so arduously desired. 

He did not yent all his spite against Erasmus, but 
yented his spite against the Baj)tists because they 
reject infant baptism, which originated in the mid- 
dle of the 3rd century. Then he turned cannibal 
and was determined to deyour the body and blood 
of Christ, claiming that the eucharist is the literal 
body and blood of Christ. Christ had but one lit- 
eral body and there would not be enough to go 
around once and what would we do for a carcass for 
the next meal? The eucharist is not the literal 
nor spiritual body, but it is figuratiye, just the same 
as a hobbyhorse is a figure of a horse. Bunyan in 
his Holy War tells us how we can eat Christ. He 
says when Diabolus captured Mansoul (Adam), he 
made Lord Lusting Lord Mayor, but when Eman- 
uePs army recaptured it they crucified Lusting and 
then Emanuel took up his abode again in Mansoul, 
for they that are Christ's haye crucified the flesh 
with its passions and lusts. So when we cleanse 
our temples Christ who stands at the door and 
knocks mil come in and dwell in us and then we will 
haye eaten His body and blood in a spiritual sense. 

With his marriage Luther's spiritual work was 
done and seemed to be obliyious to all around. The 
Auo^sburg diet that formed the creed called the 
Augsburg confession was held but he did not at- 
tend; others had to complete the work. I will now 
oiye the whole text: '' Ye did run well, w4iat did 
hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?" Yet 
Luther sayed the church. How? By restoring the 
law, By the decree of the Council of Nice, A. D, 325. 



183 



tliej rejected the letter of the gospel and tried to 
still hold to the spirit, which resulted in their losing 
both the gospel and the law, which I said was found- 
ed on marriage. So in restoring marriage to the 
church Luther restored the law. His sin was not 
so much in getting married as it was in breaking his 
vow, so he really sacrificed himself to save the 
church. So which shall we follow, Luther who takes 
us back to the law^, or Christ who leads to God and 
Lis kingdom? 



TWENTY-FOURTH STEP. 



Adam's Fall. 



'' In Adam all die.''— I Cor. 15: 22. 

To the' modern clinrcli this is an unfathomable 
mjsterj; how we could possibly be punishable foi- 
•a sin committed 6000 years ago, over which we had 
DO possible control, when even the Bible says tht^ 
child shall not be punished for the sin of the parents; 
yet it is plain that Adam's sin separated the whole 
human race from God and subjected them to death 
as the true penalty. All efforts of modern theol- 
ogians to give a logical explanation have failed, and 
some have been honest enough to acknowledge theii 
ignorance and accounted it an unfathomaible mys- 
tery. 

As God is a God of nature, equity and justice, all 
of his laws must agree thereto; so the penalty must 
have been the natural result of the sin. So' we must 
(like a physician) first examine the disease to ascer- 
tain its cause, which we will find in Genesis, 3rd 
chapter. The first result was they discovered' their 
nakedness and were ashamed, as Milton says in Para- 
dise Lost: 

'' But let us now, as in bad plight, devise 
What best may, for the present, serve to hide 
The parts of each from other that seems most 
To shame, obnoxious, and unseemliest seem; 
Some tree, whose broad, smooth leaves together 

sewed, 
And girded on our loins, mav cover round 
Those middle parts; that this new comer, shame, 



18d 

There sit not and reproach us as unclean.'^ 

Nothing- but carnal lust could produce this sense 
of shame, for we see it in the naked savages, who are 
naked in their childhood but when they come to 
puberty they, as Milton says: 
" And with w^hat skill they had together sewed 
To gird their waist, vain covering, if to hide 
Their guilt and dreaded shame! O, how unlike 
To that first naked glory! Such, of late, 
Columbus found the American, to girt 
With feather'd cincture. Naked else, and wild 
Among the trees on islesi and woody shores." 

It is self-evident fact that if they had have known 
lust before the fall they would have discovered their 
nakedness. 

My next witness is Tertullian, who is called the 
Solomon of the Apostolic Fathers. He says, '' Since 
the last Adam (that is Christ) w^ast entirely unwedded, 
as Avas the first Adam before his exile." John Bun- 
yan in his Holy War representsi Adam's fall as the 
taking of Mansoul by Diabolus (the evil one), and 
says: '' He did choose a Lord Mayor himself, and 
such as contented them to the heart, and such ass 
pleased him wonderous well. The name of the Lord 
Mayor that was of Diabolus' making was the Lord 
Lusting, a man that had neither ears nor eyes. All 
that he did he did naturally, as doth the beast." 

Peter says .(II Pet. 1: 4) of the saints: ''He hath 
granted unto uS' his precious and exceeding great 
promises that through these ye may become partali- 
ers of the divine nature, having escaped from the 
corruption (death) that is in the w^orld by lust." 
Proving that death comes from lust. And Paul says, 
" If ye live after the flesh ye shall die." I have pro- 
duced proof that the mortal disease was carnal lust, 
which Martin Luther also asserts, but says that mar- 
riage is a plaster for the sore, but we well know that 
^t never heals it nor is applied for that purpose, but 



186 

is to keep the sore running until it runs our life 
away, and if the plaster gets dead from excessive 
drawing that it is useless. We are so fearful that the 
sore will heal that we are apt to apply a green, fresh 
plaster to start it running again. 

The next symptom of the disease is, '^ God said to 
the woman, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and 
thy conceptions. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth 
children, and thy desire shall be for thy husband, 
and he shall rule over thee." Tiiis is generally true, 
but I did read of a case where the wife did the ruling, 
and another where I thought she ought to. Luther 
said in his " Table Talk," " I have never learned 
from experience of one case where a man married 
for the sole purpose of begetting children to rear to 
serve the Lord." I wonder if any one else had such 
an experience? No one dares to deny that excessive 
childbearing is the natural result of carnal desire. 
To find the spring we must follow the river up- 
stream. To find the source of lust we must go be- 
yond Adam and Eve. Before God created man he 
created the innumerable and immortal host of angels 
and made them all of the male sex for a purpose 
and gave them power to be both visible and invisi- 
ble. So they could get offspring without lust, or 
being perceived had Adam retained his virginity, as 
in the case of Sarah (Gen. 21: 1-2), and in the case 
c^f Mary, who bore a son and still remained a virgin, 
and I say here that she always remained a virgin, 
for Joseph was an old TV^idower with a family of 
grown up children, who are called Christ's brethren, 
when he espoused her. 

These angels differed in strength and position and 
ability, but were made (like man) in the image of 
God, and the one called the Serpent had the earth 
for his dominion and got jealous of Adam for being 
in possession of the only f era ale of all the beings 
created in the divine form, so he approached Eve 



187 

ill his visible form not to people the earth with holy 
beings but to create and feed his own lust and im- 
part it to her for their own selfish gratification and 
not for God's glory. After this act, which trans- 
formed the Serpent into the Devil and Satan (Rev. 
12:9) and kindled the fire of lust in Eve, it was easy 
for her to do the rest, which entailed lust on the 
entire human race which eternally separated us from 
God unless we accept the atonement which Christ 
came to bring. But that is not a part of this effort 
for I am only treating the fall. 

Christ came to reveal all things connected with 
the fall, as much of the language in Gensis is figur- 
ative on purpose to conceal its meaning until then, 
for Christ alone was to bring redemption, and to 
know the disease was necessary to be able to learn 
its cure. Yet the lascivious (called Christian) 
church has been more laborious in concealing than 
revealing the most vital part of Christ's teachings 
for over 1500 years. The Apostles delivered them to 
the early Fathers of the church w^ho recorded them, 
and they have come down to us. The Apostle An- 
drew said, " Since the first man, Adam, who brought 
death into the world through the transgression of 
the tree and been produced from the spotless earth, 
it w^as necessary that the son of God should be be- 
gotten a perfect man through the spotless virgin, 
that he should restore eternal life which men had 
lost through Adam, and should cut off the tree of 
carnal appetite through the tree of the cross." So 
you see what tree Adam ate of. Archelaus, an earl^y 
bishop, saj's., '' For this reason also has' he obtained 
the name of Devil, because be has passed over from 
the heavenly places and appeared on earth as the 
disparager of God's commandment." Clement tells 
us that carnal men are children of the devil. Did 
not Christ say '' Ye are of your father, the devil, and 
the lusts of your father you will do." If Satan sol- 



188 



emnized (?) the first carnal marriage he is the father 
of it. 

Yictorinus, an early spiritual T\'riter, says, '' Who, 
then, that is taught in the law of God, who is filled 
with the Hoh' Spirit, does not see in his heart that 
on the same day of the week that on which the 
dragon seduced Eve the angel Gabriel brought the 
glad tidings to the Virgin 3Iary.'" Justin Martyi 
says the serpent fell with a great OYerthrow because 
he deceived Eve. Ignatius is said to be one of the 
children that Christ blessed. There are 15 epistles 
that bear his name. One to St. John, one to Mary, 
and one to Polycarp. The following is from his ad- 
dress to Satan in his Epistle to the Philippians: 
^' Thou dost set forth thine own fall as an example 
to tlie Lord, and dost promise to give Him what is 
really His own if He would fall down and worship 
thee; and how didst thou not shudder, O thou spirit 
most wicked, through thy maleyolence than all other 
wicked spirits to utter such words against the Lord? 
Through thine appetite (Greek belly) thou wast over- 
come, and through thy vain glory thou wast bi ought 
to dishonor. Thou, O bellial, dragon, apostate, 
crooked serpent, rebel against God, outcast from 
Christ, alien from the Holy Ghost, exile from the 
ranks of angels, reviler of the laws of God, enemy 
to all that is lawful, who did raise up against the 
first-formed of men, and didst drive from the com- 
mand of God those who in no respect injured thee-, 
thou who didst take arms against Job: dost thou sa\ 
to the Lord, If thou will fall down and worship me? 
Oh, what audacity! O, Avhat madness! Thou run- 
away slave, thou incorrigible slave, dost thou rebel 
against the good Lord? Dost thou say to so great 
a Lord; the God of all that either thee or the sense 
can perceive: If Thou wilt fall down and wor?hip 
me?" 

To Adam God said: ^' In the sweat of thv face 



189 



Shalt thou eat bread^ till thou return unto the 
ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou 
art and unto dust shalt thou return." 

No argument is necessary to prove that carnal 
indulgence will produce all of these results. As 
God said to Satan, dust shalt thou eat all the days 
of thy life, so he said to Adam, dust thou art; and 
•so is all of the human famih^, and Satan has eaten 
them all up; and Satan and all carnal men go on 
their belly. 

Eden and Paradise are figurative terms and mean 
God's dwelling place, for He was with Adam be- 
fore he fell as He is with holy men now. The tree 
of life is the tree of virginity, which all who obtain 
Christ's kingdom will have to eat of, for those holy 
ones who will have part in the first resurrection 
will not be defiled, for they are virgins, we read in 
Rev. 14: 4, and these will possess the kingdom, fO' 
Clement, Peter's companion and disciple, says: '' Fox 
God will give to virgins the Kingdom of Heaven by 
reason of the great and profession." Beausober, a,a 
eminent French Protestant writer, says: ''It wa» 
the prevailing opinion among the earliest C'hrrstians 
that if Adam had not fallen by disobedience hb 
would have lived forever in a state of virgin purity, 
and that a race of sinless beings would have peopled 
Paradise produced by some less objectionaible means 
than the union of the first pair of immortals w^ho 
became mortals." But God never made a mistake. 
When He made the serpent he knew what he would 
do, but he told him not to, and the same with Adam. 
Had there been no devil, no carnal desire, no temp- 
tation, there could be no reward for obedience. The 
dog or horse earns no reward for obeying their mas- 
ter, for that is their nature. Had all earned a king- 
ship there could have been no servants for them to 
reign over and subsequently no kingdom. So God 
o'ave the law of Moses first, so all who obeved it 



190 

might have wives and be subjects, while those who 
obeyed Christ's gospel and became his virgins might 
be kings and reign over them. Esau typifies the 
former, who sold his birthright to the kingdom for 
a morsel of flesh, w^hile Jacob does the latter, who 
exchanged the flesh for the heirship. 

" The time is short," says Paul, " when those w^ho 
have wives be as if they had none." Zachariah 12: 
12-14 says that the families that remain shall mourn 
every family apart and their wives apart. So you 
can begin to see w^hat Christ meant when he said 
unless a. man hateth his own wife he cannot be my 
disciple; and there is neither male nor female in 
Christ Jesus. 

Nearly all of the early Fathers w^ho wa^ote during 
the first three centuries, wrote in praise of virginity. 
Clement wrote tw^o epistles to virgins, filling 12 
double column pages. Methodeus' Banquet of the 
Ten Virgins is grand and complete, filling 50 pages. 
Tertullian'S waitings on the subject w^ould fill as 
many more. What do modern theologians say on 
the subject? Nothing. Where are the virgins in 
the modern Protestant church? Echo answers: 
Where? 

The serpent was not the only angel that fell by 
their lust, for w^e read in Genesis 6: that when men 
began to multiply on the earth and daughters w^ere 
born unto them, that the sons of God (angels) saw 
that they wxre fair that they took them wdves of all 
that they chose, and their children were giants, 
whom the Lord sent the flood to destroy. II Peter 
2: 4 and Jude 6: speaks of them, and a number 
of the Apostolic Fathers, from which I quote Laclan- 
tins: '' When, therefore, men had begun to increase, 
God in his foresight, lest the devil, to W'hom from 
the beginning He had given power over the earth, 
should by his subtlety either corrupt or destroy men, 
as he had done at first, sent angels for the protec- 



191 

tion and improvement of the human race; and in- 
asmuch as' he had given these a freewill He enjoined 
them above all things not to defile themselves with 
contamination from the earth and thus lose the dig- 
nity of their heavenly nature. He plainly prohibit- 
ed them from that which He knew that they w^ould 
do, that they might entertain no hope of pardon. 
Therefore, while they abode among mien, that most 
deceitful ruler of the earth by his very association 
gradually enticed them to vice and polluted them 
by intercourse with women. Then not being ad- 
mitted into heaven on account of their sins into 
which they had plunged themselves, they fell to the 
earth. Thus from angels the devil made them to 
become his satellites and attendants. But they who 
were born from them, because they were neither 
angels nor men, but being a kind of mixed nature, 
were not admitted into hell, as their fathers were not 
into heaven. Thus there came to be two kinds of 
demons; one of heaven and the other of earth. The 
latter are the wicked spirits, the author of all the 
evil that is done, and the devil is their prince." 
Their bodies were destroyed in the flood, but their 
immortal spirits compass the earth seeking bodies 
to dwell in. When they possess our bodies they 
are the author of every evil thought, desire or dream. 
The best way is to starve them out is by fastings, as 
Christ did during his 40 days' temptation, and we 
need not w^onder'the demons wanted the stones turn- 
ed into bread, as they enjoy our feasts with us, and 
abstinence from worldly pleasure, which is necesr 
sary if we approach near to God. (See Exodus' 19: 
14-15, 1 Cor. 7: 5, I Sam. 21: 4, and Rev. 14: 4.) 

If God banished the holy angels from heaven and 
would not permit them to see his face for no other 
sin than taking a wife; how about us, guilty of the 
same fault? Is God such a respecter of persons> 
that he will condemn to eternal fire (for that will 



192 



be their final end) for one crime, one being, and 
set another on Ids throne to judge him who is guilty 
of the same, and that unrepented of? Know ye not 
that je shall judge angels. The Holy Spirit if fol- 
lowed wdll always lead to virginity. The children 
of this world are wiser than the children of light. 

I consider the Mormons the farthest from Christ 
of any church that claims the name of Christ, and 
they teach that Satan seduced Eve and she tempted 
Adam, and repeat the play in their temple w^orship. 
One taking Adam s and another Eve's and another 
Satan's and another God's part. Thus admitting 
that Adam lost Paradise by a carnal marriage. The 
query is: If Adam lost Paradise by taking one wife, 
can they retain it by taking tw^o or moie. They say 
we are not punishable for Adam's sin. I should 
think we are punishable for our sin if we commit 
the same, for what was sin against God 6000 years 
ago is sin to-day. I believe that Ann Lee, the foun- 
der of the Shakers, was led by the spirit of God to 
embrace virginity, but afterward the devil came to 
her as an angel of light and made her believe she 
was Christ, and led her and all of her followers 
astray. I was under a similar influence for three 
days, and the tempter told me I could make all be- 
lieve I was Christ and brino- the world to mv feet. 
The virginity of the Catholic priests is not accept- 
able to God and does not lead to the kinsdom, but I 
cannot explain here. I have shown you how Para- 
dise was lost, and leave you to guess how it can be 
regained. 



TWENTY-FIFTH STEP. 



Virginity. 



" Having, therefore, these promises, beloved, let 
us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and 
spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." — II 
Oor. 7: 1, E. V. ^ 

The promises are in the previous verses and are, 
" Come ye out from among them and be ye separate, 
saith the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; and I 
will receive you and will be to you a father and ye 
shall be to me sons and daughters, siith the Lord 
Almighty." 

No part of the Christian religion is so much ig- 
nored by the Protestant churches as the subject of 
virginity, and none of their clergymen can recom- 
mend it without condemning their own lives, yet it 
is one of the doors that we must surely pass through 
before we can be admitted into Christ's presence or 
have part in the first resurrection, as you will read in 
Rev. 14: 1-5. Verse four says, "These are they which 
were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. 
These are they that follow the Lamb whithersoever 
He goeth. These were purchased from among men 
to be the first fruits unto God and the Lamb. 'And 
in their mouth was found no lie. They are without 
blemish." 

This hapDy comnanv is limited to 144,000, yet it 
is the Drivilege of each of you to be ove of them. 
Vireinitv alone does not admit into the kingdom ^^ 
Christ, for ten in the ^arable came t^ th^ rloor but 
five onlv were admitted. The Koman Oathol'cs 



194 



make a boast of their priests, monks and nuns, but 
I fear they will mostly be found with the foolish 
virgins, for thev refuse to follow Christ everTwher^ 
and trample the most yital of his teachings, and 
even now thej are departing from that, for a promi- 
nent priest recently startled tlie world by urging 
his virgins to marry, and said there were sixty vir- 
gins in his church that he would like to see brought 
to the altar; and other priests have taken up tlv- 
cue. Yet in teaching viroinity I have been accused 
of teachiniG: Eomanism. Do Christ and the Apostle^^ 
teach virginity? Jesus said, ^' The sons of this world 
marry, and are ffiven in marriage; but they that are 
accounted worthy to attain to that world and the 
(first) resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor 
are given in marriage; for neither can thev die any 
more, for they are eoual unto the angels and are sons 
of God being sons of the resurrectioD." To the f^ast 
of the kingdom Christ said of those that bought 
land and oxen, '' Have me excused." They could 
come but preferred to stay away; but one said, "I 
have married me a wife, therefore I cannot come to 
your virgins' banquet." In 3f,att. 19: 10-12. offers 
virginity to all able to receive it, and says, " Ask and 
ye shall receive, for he that asketh receiveth." Paul 
says, ^' Art thou loose from a wife? Seek not a wife. 
But this I say, brethren, the time is shortened that 
henceforth both those that have wives may be as 
thou2:h they had none. She that is unmarried is 
careful for the things of the Lord that she may be 
holy both in body and spirit." 

I have given ample proof that to any one that is 
willin.or to believe the Bible that Christ and the 
Apostles tauaht virgiuitv. But tliey permitted mar- 
riage to those who couM not or wouM not accept 
it, but at an unfathomable loss. God permitted 
marriage urrler the old law but barred them from his 
presence. Priests were washed and kept from theii 



195 



faDiilies eiglit days before tliey could minister be- 
fore the Lord. No woman was admitted in the tem- 
ple. The congregation had to separate themselves 
three days before God would come to give them the 
law. HoAV is it with modern ministers? Did the 
Apostolic Fathers teach virginity? There are eight 
volumes of their writings, containing over 5,000 dou- 
ble column pages, that have been suppressed for 
1500 years because they taught virginity. They can 
now be had at Charles Scribner's Sons for |20, which 
is about half what mine cost. I think enough is 
written on the subject ^n them to fill one of the 
volumes' of 600 pages. They treat the subject fully. 
One article fills 50 pages, and nearly every writei* 
has written in its praise and none against it. An 
attempt to quote them would be to exceed m^^ pres- 
ent alloted space and T have quoted Fome und^r 
other heads. 

What will we gain by virginity? We will become 
a son of God, a joint heir to the kingdom and crown 
with Christ and reign eternally with Him; be sub- 
jected to no more temptations and have eternal rest 
with God and never taste death. . 

What will we lose or gain by rejecting it? We 
will have to die; will have to suffer in the s!:reat 
tribulation, and if we are saved we will be banished 
from Christ's presence and the Holy Cit,y; be sub- 
jected to another temptation at the clo^e of the mil- 
lennium, Avhen most of them who have been subjects 
will be lost. 



TWENTY-SIXTH STEP. 



The Fish Story. 



" As Jonah was three davs and three nio'hts in 
the whale's belly; so shall the son of man be three 
days and three nights in the heart of the earth." — 
Matt 12: 40. 

Infidels have taken great delight in flinging 
Jonah's fish story at people who claim to believe 
the Bible. In short it is about the only argument 
they have to prove the untruthfulness of the Bible. 

The Irishman called Jonah the '^ whale 'ater." 

" Well, Sambo, what did the minister preach 
about?" 

" 'Bout de mio'htv bi^r miracle." 

" What was it about? " 

" He told 'bout the 12 'postles eating 5000 loaves 
of bread and 5000 fishes." 

'" What was the miracle, as there seems to be 
plenty for them?" 

" Whv, thev ate it all and did not burst." 
Robert Inirersoll asked a Professor if the Bible said 
that Jonah swallowed the whale would he believe 
it? He said he would; why not? Martin Luth-r 
tells of a man who swallowed a horse and wagon, 
and claimed to furnish the proof, and no one would 
think of questionino- Martin's statement, and after 
a man had practiced on a few horses and wascons 
it would not be difficult for him to swallow a whale. 
Of course none but a wizard could do it, and Martin 
was a firm believer in witchcraft, and tells many 
stories just as unnatural, One was of a wife who 



197 



died and was buried, came back to her iiusband and 
lived with him several years and had several chil- 
dren, but she suddenly disappeared leaving hei 
robes behind because he swore. He pointed to the 
children for proof. 

I had an intemperate neighbor who went into a 
saloon and told the loungers to look down his throat 
as there w^as something in it; which they did. Don't 
you see anything, he asked. They said, no. You 
ought to, he replied, for I have swallowed two farms. 

Avowed infidels have not been alone in denying 
the truth of Jonah's whate story. Beecher's' Ply- 
mouth successor gained much unpopular notoriety 
by calling the book of Jonah a novel. 

We will now consider some of the reasons that its 
opponents give for rejecting the book. First, that 
tlie whale lives on insects' and has not a throat large 
enough to swallow^ a whole apple. Answer — The 
word whale does not occur in the book of Jonah, 
and the word in the text is an error of the trans- 
lator, and w^hale is not in the Greek. The account 
reads, God prepared a great fish, and if God could 
make so large a fish to swallow a bug He could 
make a smaller one to swallow a man. Sharks and 
crocodiles can swallow a large fish, and I have seen 
a snake sw^allow a toad larger than itself. 

Second, a man could not live in a fish's belly. 
AnsAver — Neither could you live in a furnace of fire 
nor in a caldron of burning oil; but men have. Could 
not God keep Jonah alive three days in the fish's 
belly as well as he could you nine months in your 
mother's, unless you happened to be a seven months' 
issue or an incubator baby. 

Third, the Jews were a despised race and their 
preaching would not be accepted in a foreign coun- 
try. If a. Spaniard landed in New York and went 
up Broadway preachings, '' Hear ye! Hear ye! In 
40 days this city shall be overthrown." Do you 



198 



think the Mayor and citv officials would exchano:e 
their broadcloth for sackcloth and proclaim a fast 
for man and beast? Xot a bit of it. But the preach- 
er would land in a lunatic asyltim before he had 
o'ot many blocks. Answer — It may be true, but a 
prophet is not without honor saye in his own coun- 
ti-T. The Xineyites were heathens and worshipers 
of the god Drao'on, who they belieyed came out of 
the sea and was half man and half fish. God neyer 
made a mistake, and he did not mean to send Jonah 
on a fool's errand, as He did Jeremiah and others 
who he sent to preach to Jerusalem, and probably 
would if he had gone directly to Xineyah; but God 
knew that he wotild not and prepared accordingly. 
So Jonah started for Tarshish to run away from the 
Lord, which resulted in the conyersion of the ship's 
crew, which was a good start for n m^'^sionary. X^xt 
he conyerted the fish — into a submarine packet; and 
finally reached Xineyah; not as a Jew, but as a 
representatiye of their god Dragon, who came from 
a fish otit of the sea, and they could not deny him 
without denying their god. The result was the 
whole city (probably as large as Xew York) repented 
in sackcloth and ashes and fasted and turned from 
their eyil ways and cried mightily unto God, who 
heard them and spared their city. 

After Jonali had gainetl their confidence as a 
representatiye of Dragon he had no trouble to point 
them to the true God. Xow can you s-ee the wisdom 
of God in tising those means to bring that great 
city to repentence. 

This was dotibtless the most successftil missionary 
journey of the world's history, and the only ca^e 
where the missionary got angry ^' eyen unto death '* 
at the success of his preaching. 

Xineyah repented and was sayed for a time, prob- 
ably durinu' that generation, but it went back to 
idolatry, which caused it eternal destruction, fot 



199 



the want of another Jonah. It requires no great 
argument to prove that the Ninevites were sinners, 
for the king said, '' Let them turn every one from 
their evil ways, and from the violence that is in 
their hands.'' The question is, was Nineveh any 
more corrupt than New^ York is to-day, which has 
not the excuse of ignorance that the former had, 
that there were more than six score thousand per- 
sons who cannot discern between their right hand 
and their left hand. Has not Tammany extorted 
from the people whenever she ruled since the days 
of the Tw^eed ring, and is not the present Mayor 
with his ice trust refusing the tormented poor a 
drop of cold water to cool their parched tongues? 
I see their dragon or fish god swallowing the whole 
city with its rum greed and lust. It would take an 
army of Parkhursts to save the city. The one they 
turned into a Jonah and sw^allow^ed him up but 
failed to turn themselves into Ninevites and repent 
at his preaching. So the city will surely have to 
be overthrown, for God says, '' There was a great 
earthquake such as was not since men were upon 
the earth so mightily and the cities of the nations 
fell.'' So this does not applj^ to New York alone, 
for '' the soul that sinneth it shall die " applies to 
all, and these dreadful days are just before us, so 
it behooves every one to repent. 



TWENTY-SEVENTH STEP. 



Free Methodist Holiness. 



Except our righteousness exceed the righteous- 
ness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise 
enter into the Kingdom or Heaven. — Matt. 5: 20. 

Soon after Luther had broken the papal chain 
England fell in line. These things occurred during 
the reign of Henry the Eighth, who wrote a book 
against some of Luther- s teachings, for w^hich the 
Pope honored him with the title of '' Defender of 
the Faith." Soon after he asked the Pope to annul 
his marriage that he could marry Anna Belone; but 
the Pope was so slow about it and he could not wait, 
so he broke allegiance with the Pope and established 
the Episcopal Ohurch, after the form of the Catholic, 
only put himself at its head instead of the Pope. But 
the church dropped some of the gross errors of the 
parent and very many very good men have been en- 
rolled among its members; among which was John 
Wesley, who was a close student of the Bible and 
taught holiness, and with Whitefield was instru- 
mental in many thousand conversions, which he of- 
fered to the mother church, but she refused to re- 
ceive them, so lie was obliged to organize the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church, which has done a very great 
w^ork for the Lord, and counts her members by the 
millions; but he never left the parent church and 
died in it. 

In the world's history no church has gained wealth 
and popularity without losing its deep piety, and 
the Methodist was no exception; so like Jeshurun 



201 

(the upright one), thej " waxed fat and wicked.^^ 
Some years ago some of their ministers tried to bring 
them back to their former faith and teachings, but 
succeeded only in getting expelled from the church, 
so they organized the Free ^Methodist Church, whicli 
corrected many errors of the mother church. I have 
enjoyed attending many of their meetings and give 
them the credit of holding more truth than any of 
the old churches; but their ministers admit that 
they are not living up to the standard of 20 years 
ago. They teach perfection, and many claim to have 
received the Holy Spirit, or '' a clean heart " as they 
call it, and live without sinning. 

I attended one of their meetings recently when 
the pastor was absent and an old man who had 
been presiding elder or chairman 12 years took his 
place. I had never met him before. He took for 
his subject the Tth of Eomans, which says: '' The 
law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin, for 
what I do I know not; for not what I would that 
do I practice; but what I hate that I do, for to will 
is present with me; but to do that wiiicli is good 
is not, for the good which I would I do not; but the 
evil which I would not that I do. I find then the 
law, that to me who would do good evil is present. 
O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me 
out of the body of this death.'' 

The Free Methodist hold that after a man haf> 
received the spirit he will no longer sin, and as Paul 
received Him by the laying on of Ananias' hands 
(Acts, 9: 17) at least 20 years before he wrote the 
above, it is in their w^ay and must be got out. So 
the preacher said that Paul was not giving his ex- 
perience in this 7th of Romans, but that of impeni- 
tent sinners, and it applied to him before his con- 
version but not then, and that sinners hated sin. 
Yet Paul said that before his conversion he was a 
strict Pharisee, and as touching the law, blameless; 



•202 



and the Word says. •• The T\icked delighi to do evil, 
they do it with both hands.'" 

The Free Methodist like all other modern holiness 
teachers are. either ionorantlv or otherwise, tr-Tino; 
to steal a march uj^on the Lord, or to get a crown 
without paying the x^rice; and if Paul meant sin- 
ners and not himself when he said " I and me," he 
lied over 40 times in the last 20 verses of this chap- 
ter, which is ptitting them in very thick. But he 
meant just what he said, and his exxDerience is the 
same as any man's who will obtain the kingdom. 

As I have rei^eatedly stated, conversion does not 
relieve us from temjDtation. but removes love for sin. 
and the temptation for sin is stronger than the 
hatred of it and forces us to do what we would not. 
and like Paul, the things we hate them we do. be- 
cause Satan rules our bodies. Neither does the 
Spirit help us or relieve tis of Satan's power, but 
will lead us to a scouroincr or chastening-, which will 
cause bodilv sufferino- which will drive Satan from 
us for ever and remove all desire for sin and make 
us sons of God and perfect. 

Paul knew what was between him and perfection. 
but a Koman law stood between him and its accept- 
ance that it was verv hard for him to set over, as 
he tells us in Phil. 3: 8-16. " That I may know him 
and the power of his resurrection and the power of 
his suffering; becoming conformed unto his death, if 
by any means I may attain unto the resurrection 
of the dead. Not that I have already obtained, or 
am already made perfect: but I press on. if so be 
that I may apprehend that for which I was appre- 
hended by Christ." 

You see here he was seeking for some peculiar 
suffering that was to make him perfect and enable 
him to attain to the first restirrection. for " Blessed 
and Holy is he that hath X3art in the first resnrrec- 
tion. for on such the second death hath no power.'' 



203 



But he after this obtained his- coveted treasure, for 
in Ool. 1: 24-29, he says, '' Now I rejoice in my suffer- 
ings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which 
is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for 
his body's sake, which is the church." He also says 
in Galatians: '^ I bear branded in my body the mark^ 
of Jesus, and, I have been crucified with Christ, yet 
I live and yet no longer I, but Christ livetli in me," 
and, '' They that are of Christ have crucified the 
flesh with its passions and lusts." 

We know that Paul wrote Eomans, I Corinthians 
and Philippians before he identified himself with 
Christ by bearing his cross, and Hebrews, Gala- 
tians and Colossians, and probably II Corinthians, 
Ephesians, Tliessalonians, Titus a.nd Timothy after. 
He says in Rom. 8: IT, '' We are sons of God and 
joint heirs with Christ if so be that w^e have suf- 
fered together with him," and to Timothy, ^' If ye 
suffer ye shall reign with Him," and in Hebrews, 12: 
'' If ye do not suffer ve are bastards and not sons." 
So if your righteousness does not exceed the right- 
eousness of the Free Methodist and all others of 
like faith, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 



> nv Tft IDfll 



NOV 12 19UI 



1901 



